NOTES  AND   REVIEWS 


. 


NOTES  AND  REVIEWS 


With  a  ^Preface  by  PIERRE  DE  CHAIGNON  LA  ROSE 

A  Series  of  Twenty-five  Papers  Hith 
erto  Unpublished  in   Book   Form 


DUNSTER     HOUSE 

Cambridge,  <3&assachusetts 
MDCCCCXXI 


Copyright,  1921,  by 
DUNSTER  HOUSE  BOOKSHOP 


THK    UNIVERSITY    PRESS,     CAMBRIDGE,    U.  S.  A. 


Preface 

youthful  Henry  James,  a  few  months 
beyond  the  age  of  twenty-one,  began  his 
literary  career  as  critic,  in  The  North  American 
Review  of  October,  1864,  with  an  unsigned  review 
of  Nassau  W.  Senior's  "Essays  on  Fiction."  In 
the  present  volume  the  editor  has  collected  all  of 
James's  printed  writings  during  the  first  three 
calendar  years  of  his  apprenticeship  (1864,  1865, 
and  1866),  with  the  exception  of  six  papers  which 
have  already  appeared  in  "book  form."  Of  these 
six,  two  are  stories:  "A  Landscape  Painter"  (The 
Atlantic  Monthly,  February,  1866)  and  "A  Day 
of  Days"  (The  Galaxy,  June  15,  1866).  Both 
were  reprinted  by  Henry  James  himself  in  his  col 
lection  of  tales  called  "Stories  Revived"  (1865).  f 
The  other  four  are  unsigned  book-reviews  and 
may  be  found  in  Mr.  Le  Roy  Phillips's  volume 
of  "Views  and  Reviews"  (1908).  These  are 
"Matthew  Arnold's  Essays"  (from  The  North 
American  Review,  July,  1865),  "Mr.  Walt  Whit 
man"  (from  The  Nation,  November  16,  1865), 
"The  Limitations  of  Dickens"  (from  The  Nation, 
December  21,  1865),  and  "The  Novels  of  George 
Eliot"  (from  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  October,  1866). 
The  re-publication  of  the  twenty-five  papers 


PREFACE 

contained  in  this  volume,  all  unsigned  book- 
reviews  from  either  The  North  American  Review 
or  The  Nation^  is  an  attempt,  not  at  predatory 
"book-making"  in  the  manner  of  the  egregious 
Mr.  Wise  or  Mr.  Shorter  for  the  sake  of  unre 
strained  "collectors,"  but  at  presenting  to  the 
many  lovers  of  Henry  James,  in  a  worthy  form,  a 
series  of  his  writings  hitherto  comparatively  in 
accessible  which  may  fairly  be  considered  to  con 
stitute  his  literary  journal  —  his  reading  from  day 
to  day  and  his  passing  but  considered  critical 
reactions  thereon. 

To  reprint  all  the  forgotten  and  unsigned  jour 
nalistic  scraps  of  an  eminent  author,  fleeting 
papers  which  he  himself  refrained  from  reordering 
and  reissuing,  is  often  to  do  his  memory  a  cruel 
disservice.  For  many  of  the  most  eminent  men 
of  letters  have  been  obliged,  especially  in  youth, 
to  stoop  to  "pot-boiling,"  and  many  under  the 
shelter  of  anonymity  have  lapsed  into  the  common 
frailty  of  haste  and  slovenliness.  The  average 
"gentleman's  library"  is  freighted  with  vast,  poly- 
teuchal,  "definitive"  editions  of  popular  great 
authors  which,  to  a  literary  taste  as  sensitive,  let 
us  say,  as  James's,  would  seem  very  largely  im 
pressive  monuments  to  national  deforestation 
rather  than  to  a  discriminating  national  literacy. 
But  in  the  case  of  Henry  James,  fortunately  or 
otherwise,  we  shall,  I  feel,  be  spared  a  completely 
"definitive"  edition.  A  few  devout  Jacobites,  the 
editor  included,  will  regret  this;  but  the  reason  is 

vi 


PREFACE 

not  far  to  seek.  James,  despite  his  present  post 
humous  eminence,  was  never  a  "popular"  author; 
and  even  the  most  devout  Jacobite  must  admit, 
albeit  with  serene  tranquillity,  that  he  was  not  a 
"great"  one.  This  is  not  quite  the  place  to  enter 
upon  a  discussion  of  fundamentals.  I  may  be 
permitted  to  waive  the  point  and  aver  merely,  to 
the  common  agreement,  that  his  work  was  en 
dowed  with  a  distinction  and  a  personal  charm 
which,  to  ears  attuned  to  his  peculiar  appeal,  will 
always  be  unrivalled.  He  was  decidedly  what  he 
himself  would  have  called  a  "special  case."  Even 
his  youthful  journalistic  work  will  at  once  strike 
his  accustomed  readers  as  redolent  of  his  personal 
"note."  It  was  not  "pot-boiling,"  as  he  was 
never  quite  under  the  economic  necessity  which 
resorts  to  that;  and  this  being  so,  it  could  not  be, 
with  his  temperament,  either  hasty  or  slovenly, 
however  impenetrably  anonymous.  One  may  ac 
quit  oneself,  therefore,  of  any  disservice  to  his 
fine  memory  in  collecting  his  early  papers  to  give 
them  out  to  his  friends  and  lovers.  One  may 
even  go  to  the  lengths  he  prescribed  in  the  case 
of  Geoffrey  Aspern,  if  in  so  doing  one,  as  it  were, 
draws  from  an  old  cabinet,  in  this  instance  un 
locked,  a  forgotten  daguerreotype  of  the  '6o's,  a 
portrait  for  which  he  knowingly  sat  and  himself 
autographed  —  eager,  fresh,  and  charming. 

But  before  analysing  the  revealing  young  por 
trait  which  these  papers  present,  it  will  be  well  to 
consider  for  a  moment  the  general  literary  task 

vii 


PREFACE 

with  which  they  concern  themselves  —  that  of 
"book-reviewing."  Nowadays,  unfortunately,  in 
America  at  least,  one  must  discriminate  between 
the  art  of  literary  criticism  and  the  trade  of  book- 
reviewing.  Originally  one  and  the  same  thing, 
to-day,  thanks  to  a  commercialized  press  and  a 
generation  of  publishers  who  regard  their  opera 
tions  chiefly  as  a  species  of  speculative  manufac 
turing,  in  the  United  States  what  was  once  the 
art  of  reviewing  has  sunk  to  a  level  of  degrada 
tion  where  it  either  contents  itself  with  the  dullest 
of  pedestrian  comment  or  is  indistinguishable 
from  the  publisher's  unenlightened  paid  adver 
tisement.  In  general,  it  is  so  abysmally  and 
notoriously  beneath  contempt  that  it  is  scarcely 
worth  while  to  mention  the  fact.  It  is,  however, 
worth  while,  I  think,  to  point  out  that  half  a 
century  ago  the  case  was  quite  different,  that  re 
viewing  was  among  us  by  no  means  contemptible,- 
and  that  not  the  least  promising  among  our  anony 
mous  critics  was  a  youth  of  twenty-one  who 
quickly  assumed  an  easy  and  distinguished  pos 
ture  among  his  elders  in  The  North  American 
Review.  In  the  beginning,  Henry  James's  critical 
performances  were  not,  of  course,  "first-rate,"  — 
his  youth,  if  nothing  else,  would  militate  against 
that.  I  am  willing,  reluctantly,  to  admit  that,  to 
the  end,  he  was  not  a  "great"  critic:  his  steady 
preoccupation  with  problems  of  technique  ren 
dered  that  ultimate  philosophical  eminence  unat 
tainable  (a  constant,  tragic  paradox  in  all  art). 

viiii 


PREFACE 

But  even  at  the  beginning  his  work  was  informed 
with  distinction,  distinction  of  thought  and  of 
expression.  If  one  feels  that  he  is  occasionally 
ineffectual,  because  he  was  groping  for  a  literary 
"form"  which  his  youth  had  not  yet  achieved, 
one  is  never  unaware  of  the  charm  with  which  his 
groping  naturally  invests  itself.  And  so,  if  it 
served  no  other  purpose,  this  collection  of  reviews 
by  a  youthful  fellow-craftsman,  now  among  the 
august  dead,  might,  if  studied  seriously  by  re 
viewers  of  to-day  in  America,  tend  to  revive  a 
well-nigh  extinct  art;  for  these  papers,  whatever 
their  faults,  are  the  expression  of  an  alert  spirit,  a 
discriminating  intelligence,  ardently  devoting  it 
self  with  rare  singleness  of  purpose  to  a  service 
the  rewarding  beauty  of  which  it  never  doubts. 
Yet,  after  all,  the  chief  function  which  this  collec 
tion  will  perform,  and  one  most  welcomed  by 
James's  own  faithful  circle  of  readers,  is  that  of 
self-portraiture. 

By  a  singular  felicity  of  chance,  the  series  opens 
with  a  discussion  of  the  art  of  fiction  itself,  the 
art  which  James  was  later  to  cultivate  with  such 
assiduity  and  peculiar  success.  His  ingenuous 
statement  of  the  "fictitious  writer's"  problem  (he 
does  make  this  single  engaging  slip!)  is  a  bit  of 
unconscious  prophecy,  a  programme  which  he  was 
himself  to  follow  undeviatingly:  what  he  wrote  at 
twenty-one  through  divination,  he  might  well 
have  repeated  at  seventy  in  the  light  of  experi 
ence.  "The  friends  of  a  prolific  novelist,"  he  sug- 

ix 


PREFACE 

gests,  "must  be  frequently  tempted  to  wonder  at 
the  great  man's  fertility  of  invention  and  to  dep 
recate  its  moral  effects  ...  to  which  the  prolific 
novelist  will  probably  reply.  .  .  .  'Just  as  the 
habitually  busy  man  is  the  best  novel-reader,  so 
he  is  the  best  novel-writer;  so  the  best  novelist  is 
the  busiest  man.  It  is,  as  you  say,  because  I 
" grind  out"  my  men  and  women  that  I  endure 
them.  It  is  because  I  create  them  by  the  sweat 
of  my  brow  that  I  venture  to  look  them  in  the 
face.  My  work  is  my  salvation.  If  this  great 
army  of  puppets  came  forth  at  my  simple  bidding, 
then  indeed  I  should  die  of  their  senseless  clamor. 
But  as  the  matter  stands,  they  are  my  very  good 
friends.  The  pains  of  labor  regulate  and  conse 
crate  my  progeny.  ...  If  the  novelist  endowed 
with  the  greatest  "  facility"  ever  known  wrote  with 
a  tenth  part  of  the  ease  attributed  to  him,  then 
again  his  self-sufficiency  might  be  a  seventh 
wonder.  But  he  only  half  suffices  to  himself,  and 
it  is  the  constant  endeavor  to  supply  the  missing 
half,  to  make  both  ends  meet,  that  reconciles  him 
to  his  occupation/'  "The  Missing  Half,"  by 
Henry  James:  here,  I  propound,  is  a  general  title 
in  his  own  arresting  vein  for  the  long  series  of  his 
own  reconciliatory  "Comedie  Humaine." 

Among  the  list  of  writers  whom  James  discusses 
in  this  volume  are  an  exceptional  number  of 
names  which  have  weathered  the  last  half-cen 
tury,  some  of  the  first  importance,  some  of  sec 
ondary  but  still  enduring  worth;  only  a  few  will 


PREFACE 

be  unknown  to  his  younger  readers.  One  will  be 
amused,  and  if  a  confirmed  Jacobite  not  at  all 
surprised,  to  see  how  time  has  in  general  con 
firmed  the  early  judgments  of  the  youthful  critic. 
And  readers  who  themselves  have  ever  ventured 
into  "reviewing"  will  at  once  seek  out  with  curi 
osity  the  grounds  and  terms  of  the  critic's  likes 
and  dislikes. 

The  grounds  of  some  few  of  James's  dislikes  are 
certainly  constitutional.  I,  for  one,  in  view  of 
the  future  "Turn  of  the  Screw"  and  "What 
Maisie  Knew,"  have  been  perhaps  unreasonably 
diverted  by  this  little  passage:  "The  heroine  of 
'Moods'  is  a  fitful,  wayward,  and  withal  most 
amiable  young  person,  named  Sylvia.  We  regret 
to  say  that  Miss  Alcott  takes  her  up  in  her  child 
hood.  We  are  utterly  weary  of  stories  about  pre 
cocious  little  girls.  In  the  first  place,  they  are 
themselves  disagreeable  and  unprofitable  objects 
of  study;  and  in  the  second,  they  are  always  the 
precursors  of  a  not  less  unprofitable  middle-aged 
lover."  (The  lover  in  this  instance  is  an  advanced 
thirty-five!)  —  And  at  fifty-four  he  himself  gives 
us  an  acute  study  of  perhaps  the  most  pathetically 
precocious  little  girl  in  English  fiction.  But  at 
twenty-one,  himself  unsuspectingly  precocious, 
his  interest  in  "juvenilia,"  if  it  ever  was  quite 
normal,  is  magnificently  held  in  abeyance.  One 
gets  an  echo  of  something  of  this  twenty  years 
later  in  the  grounds  of  Stevenson's  gay  complaint 
of  James.  "He  cannot,"  writes  Stevenson  in  "A 

xi 


PREFACE 

Humble  Remonstrance/*  "criticise  the  author  as 
he  goes,  'because/  says  he,  comparing  it  with  an 
other  work,  '/  have  been  a  child,  but  I  have  never 
been  on  a  quest  for  buried  treasure?  Here  is,  in 
deed,  a  wilful  paradox;  for  if  he  has  never  been  on 
a  quest  for  buried  treasure,  it  can  be  demon 
strated  that  he  has  never  been  a  child.  There 
never  was  a  child  (unless  Master  James)  but  has 
hunted  gold,  and  been  a  pirate,  and  a  military 
commander,  and  a  bandit  of  the  mountains.  .  .  ." 
One  cannot  escape  the  conviction  from  the  outset 
that  the  hidden  treasure  to  which  "Master 
James"  surprisingly  early  devoted  the  search  of 
a  lifetime  was  a  purely  literary  one.  And  in  such 
a  search  the  interruptions  of  juvenile  Sylvias 
become  something  of  a  resentible  impertinence. 

Scarcely  more  than  half  a  dozen  of  the  novels 
herein  reviewed  are  now  hopelessly  dead  and  be 
yond  discussion;  but  one  may  read  the  reviews  of 
even  these  with  interest,  for  from  them  one  gets 
a  vivid  and  fresh  impression  of  the  fleeting  literary 
fashion  of  a  definite  period.  James,  like  any 
healthy  young  reviewer,  enjoys  "roasting"  them. 
He  equally  enjoys,  as  does  any  reviewer  worth 
his  salt,  finding  specimens  which  he  can  with  a 
clear  conscience  generously  praise.  It  is  the  hope 
lessly  "middling"  books  which  one  can  neither 
magisterially  excoriate  nor  benignantly  garland 
which  set  the  reviewer  his  most  exacting  and 
thankless  task.  From  this  last  group  James 
seems,  as  far  as  possible,  to  have  avoided  choos- 

xii 


PREFACE 

ing  his  subjects.  And,  rather  surprisingly,  it  is 
in  the  first  group  that  he  seems  inclined  to  place 
Anthony  Trollope,  three  of  whose  works  he  re 
views  in  this  volume.  If  he  grows  "utterly 
weary"  over  the  stories  about  "precocious  little 
girls,"  so  he  evinces  a  temperamental  disposition 
to  weariness  in  taking  up  a  novel  by  Trollope, 
that  soother  of  sleepless  bedsides  and  solace  of 
infirmaries.  The  colloquial  term  "roasting"  is 
perhaps  unduly  harsh  for  the  treatment  which 
James's  few  victims  receive  at  his  hands,  for  in 
general  his  admonitions  are  wrapped  in  a  friendly 
wit  and  his  disapproval  phrased  with  a  high  ur 
banity.  Nevertheless,  Trollope  fares  rather  ill 
with  him.  But  he  himself  in  his  first  discussion 
of  the  art  of  fiction,  gives  us,  unconsciously,  the 
reason  —  which  is,  again,  youth.  "Certain  young 
persons,"  he  gravely  explains,  under  the  cover  of 
a  presumably  mature  anonymity,  "are  often 
deeply  concerned  at  their  elders'  interest  in  a 
book  which  they  themselves  have  voted  either 
very  dull  or  very  silly.  The  truth  is  that  their 
elders  are  more  credulous  than  they.  Young  per 
sons,  however  they  may  outgrow  the  tendency  in 
later  life,  are  often  more  or  less  romancers  on 
their  own  account.  While  the  tendency  lasts, 
they  are  very  critical  in  the  matter  of  fictions." 
Although  this  "tendency"  was  one  which  he,  for 
tunately  for  us,  never  outgrew,  time  certainly 
mellowed  and  refined  his  judgment,  notably  in 
the  case  of  Trollope,  to  whose  memory  he  makes, 


Xlll 


PREFACE 

in  1883,  a  very  handsome  and  delicately  discrimi 
nating  amend,  now  familiar  to  us.  in  "Partial 
Portraits." 

James's  treatment  of  Swinburne  also  shows  us 
for  the  first  time  a  little  limitation  of  sympathy 
which,  in  this  instance,  was  not  to  be  confined  to 
his  youth  but,  I  feel,  was  characteristic  of  his 
mature  years.  One  may  readily  agree  with  all 
that  he  says  of  "Chastelard";  one  may  keenly 
enjoy  the  clear-sightedness  with  which  he  picks 
out  its  shortcomings  and  the  neat  precision  with 
which  he  makes  his  "points";  yet  one  cannot  fail 
to  note  that  except  for  a  final  cursory  sentence  in 
his  review,  the  play  might  perfectly  well  have 
been  written  in  prose,  for  all  that  we  gather  from 
the  critic.  His  preoccupation  is  with  its  dramatic 
technique,  with  its  ineffectually  solved  problems 
of  "characterization,"  "movement,"  what  you 
will.  This  is,  of  course,  wholly  legitimate  —  up 
to  a  certain  point;  but,  after  all,  the  play  is  in 
verse.  And  to  its  poetry,  as  such,  he  is  unexpec 
tedly  insensitive.  Few  men  other  than  dilettanti, 
certainly  few  artists,  have  room  in  themselves  for 
a  reasoned  appreciation  of  all  the  arts.  But  it  is 
ever  instructive  to  note  their  self-denials  or  re 
strictions.  With  James  you  will  hunt  in  vain  for 
any  printed  indication  of  a  love  of  music.  His 
love  of  the  art  of  painting,  especially  of  portrai 
ture,  was  intense  and  colored  many  pages  of  his 
fictions.  But  in  his  long  career  as  a  critic  he  has 
given  us  but  three  deliberately  reasoned  studies 

xiv 


PREFACE 

of  poets,  and  these  three  poets  are  French:  de 
Musset,  Gautier,  and  Baudelaire.  It  is,  to  me  at 
least,,  singular  that  a  master  of  English  prose,  a 
critic  so  exquisitely  endowed  (and  so  voluminous) 
should  have  left  so  little  indication  in  his  published 
writings  of  a  love  of  English  poetry. 

But  many  of  even  his  accustomed  readers  will 
find  for  the  first  time,,  among  the  following  papers, 
Henry  James's  one  measured  excursion  into  the 
field  of  formal  Philosophy,,  that  family  paddock 
in  which  he  might  well  have  romped  with  the 
brilliant  gaiety  of  his  eminent  brother.  The  essay 
on  Epictetus  with  its  admirable  discussion  of 
Stoicism  is  a  wholly  unexpected  little  "James" 
treasure  which  one  would  not  willingly  have 
missed.  As  a  measure,  thus  early,  of  his  intellec 
tual  calibre,  of  his  spiritual  poise  and  sanity,  of 
his  indefeasible  kinship,  it  assumes  to  the  student 
and  lover  of  James  a  value  far  beyond  its  own 
critical  importance. 

And  so  one  might  go  on,  discussing  paper  after 
paper  in  the  light  of  his  subsequent  publications 
and  detaining  the  reader  from  the  real  purpose  of 
the  book  which  is,  as  I  said  in  the  beginning,  to 
be  found  in  James's  unconscious  self-portraiture. 
It  is  a  pleasure  to  share,  in  these  resurrected  pages 
of  his,  those  years  of  his  fastidiously  intelligent 
reading  and  to  come  upon  the  most  rewarding 
number  of  felicities  of  thought  and  of  diction. 
But  it  is  even  more  of  a  delight  to  find  revealed 
through  them  the  familiar  features  of  a  loved 

xv 


PREFACE 

author    in    his    young    prime,    features    already 
stamped  with  that  distinguishing  quality  which 
throughout  his  long  life  never  grew  blurred  or 
dimmed  —  his  supremely  endearing  "fineness/* 
PIERRE  DE  CHAIGNON  LA  ROSE. 

CAMBRIDGE,  MASSACHUSETTS, 
February  18,  1921. 


XVI 


Contents 

PAGE 

I.    FICTION  AND  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT   ...        i 

f     A  review  of  "Essays  on  Fiction."     By  Nassau  W. 
\        Senior.    London:     1864.     Originally    published    in 
The  North  American   Review,    October,  1864. 

II.    Miss  PRESCOTT'S  "AZARIAN"      .     .     .     .      16 

A  review  of  "Azarian:  an  Episode."  By  Harriet 
Elizabeth  Prescott.  Boston:  Ticknor  and  Fields, 
1864.  Originally  published  in  The  North  American 
Review,  January,  1865. 

III.  LINDISFARN  CHASE 33 

A  review  of  "Lindisfarn  Chase:  a  Novel."  By 
T.  Adolphus  Trollope.  New  York:  Harper  and 
Brothers,  1864.  Originally  published  in  The  North 
American  Review,  January,  1865. 

IV.  EMILY  CHESTER:  A  NOVEL 37 

A  review  of  "Emily  Chester:  a  Novel."  [By  Mrs. 
A.  M.  C.  Seemuller.]  Boston:  Ticknor  and  Fields, 
1864.  Originally  published  in  The  North  American 
Review,  January,  1865. 

V.    Miss  ALCOTT'S  "Moons" 49 

A  review  of  "Moods."  By  Louisa  M.  Alcott. 
Boston  :  Loring,  1865.  Originally  published  in  The 
North  American  Review,  July,  1865. 

VI.    THE  NOBLE  SCHOOL  OF  FICTION     ...     59 

A  review  of  "The  Hillyars  and  the  Burtons:  a 
Story  of  Two  Families."  By  Henry  Kingsley. 
Boston:  Ticknor  and  Fields,  1865.  Originally  pub 
lished  in  The  Nation,  July  6,  1865. 

VII.    "Miss  MACKENZIE" .68 

A  review  of  "Miss  Mackenzie."  By  Anthony 
Trollope.  New  York:  Harper  and  Brothers,  1865. 
Originally  published  in  The  Nation,  July  13, 
1865. 

xvii 


CONTENTS 

VIII.  "THE  SCHONBERG-COTTA  FAMILY"  .  .  J J 
A  review  of  "Hearthstone  Series:  Chronicles  of  the 
Schonberg-Cotta  Family;  The  Early  Dawn :  Sketches 
of  Christian  Life  in  England  in  the  Olden  Time; 
Sketches  of  the  United  Brethren  of  Bohemia  and 
Moravia;  Diary  of  Mrs.  Kitty  Trevylyan:  a  Story 
of  the  Times  of  Whitefield  and  the  Wesleys."  New 
York:  Tibbals  &  Whiting.  3  vols.  1865.  Orig 
inally  published  in  The  Nation,  September  14,  1865. 

IX.    "CAN  You  FORGIVE  HER?" 84 

A  review  of  "Can  You  Forgive  Her?"  By  An 
thony  Trollope.  New  York:  Harper  and  Brothers. 
Originally  published  in  The  Nation,  September  28, 
1865. 

X.    "THE  GAYWORTHYS" .92 

A  review  of  "The  Gayworthys:  a  Story  of  Threads 
and  Thrums."  By  the  author  of  "Faith  Gartney's 
Girlhood"  [Mrs.  A.  D.  T.  Whitney].  Boston: 
Loring,  1865.  Originally  published  in  The  North 
American  Review,  October,  1865. 

XI.    A  FRENCH  CRITIC 99 

A  review  of  "Nouvelles  Etudes  sur  la  Litterature 
Contemporaine."  By  Edmond  Scherer.  Paris,  1865. 
Originally  published  in  The  Nation,  October  1 2, 1 865. 

XII.    Miss  BRADDON 108 

A  review  of  "Aurora  Floyd."  By  M.  E.  Braddon. 
New  York:  American  News  Company  [1865].  Orig 
inally  published  in  The  Nation,  November  9,  1865. 

XIII.  EUGENIE  DE  GUERIN'S  JOURNAL      .     .     .117 

A  review  of  "The  Journal  of  Eugenie  de  Guerin." 
By  G.  S.  Trebutien.  London:  Simpkin  and  Mar 
shall,  1865.  Originally  published  in  The  Nation, 
December  14,  1865. 

XIV.  "THE  BELTON  ESTATE" 124 

A  review  of  "The  Belton  Estate."  By  Anthony 
Trollope.  Philadelphia:  J.  B.  Lippincott  and  Com 
pany,  1866.  Originally  published  in  The  Nation, 
January  4,  1866. 

xviii 


CONTENTS 


XV. 

>c 

XVI. 


SWINBURNE'S  "CHASTELARD"     .     ...     132 
A  review  of  "Chastelard:  a  Tragedy."    By  Alger 
non    Charles    Swinburne.     New   York :    Hurd    and 
Houghton,     1866.      Originally     published     in     The 
Nation,  January  18,    1866. 

KINGSLEY'S  "HEREWARD" 139 

A  review  of '  *  Hereward,  the  Last  of  the  English.  * '  By 
Charles  Kingsley.  Boston:  Ticknor  and  Fields,  1 866. 
Originally  published  in  The  Nation,  January  25,  1866. 

XVII.    "WINIFRED  BERTRAM" 146 

A  review  of  "Winifred  Bertram  and  the  World  She 
Lived  In."  By  the  author  of  "The  Schonberg- 
Cotta  Family"  [Mrs.  E.  R.  Charles].  New  York: 
M.  W.  Dodd,  1866.  Originally  published  in  The 
Nation,  February  i,  1866. 

XVIII.    MRS.  GASKELL 153 

A  review  of » '  Wives  and  Daughters. ' '  By  Mrs.  Gas- 
kell.  New  York:  Harper  and  Brothers,  1866.  Orig 
inally  published  in  The  Nation,  February  22,  1866. 


XIX. 


XX. 


XXI. 


X 


"MARIAN  ROOKE" 

A  review  of  "Marian  Rooke,  or  The  Quest  for 
Fortune:  a  Tale  of  the  Younger  World."  By 
Henry  D.  Sedley.  New  York:  Sheldon  and  Com 
pany,  1865.  Originally  published  in  The  Nation, 
February  22,  1866. 

"A  NOBLE  LIFE" 

A  review  !of  "A  Noble  Life."     By  the  author  of 
"John    Halifax,   Gentleman"     [Mrs.    D.    M.    M. 
Craik].     New  York:    Harper  and  Brothers,    1866. 
Originally  published  in  The  Nation,  March  i,  1866. 

EPICTETUS 

A  review  of  "The  Works  of  Epictetus,  Consisting 
of  His  Discourses,  in  Four  Books;  The  Enchiridion; 
and  Fragments.  A  translation  from  the  Greek,  based 
upon  that  of  Elizabeth  Carter."  By  Thomas  Went- 
worth  Higginson.  Boston  :  Little,  Brown,  and  Com 
pany,  1865.  Originally  published  in  The  North 
American  Review,  April,  1866. 

xix 


160 


'73 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 
XXII.    VICTOR  HUGO'S  LAST  NOVEL     .     .     .     . 

A  review  of  "Les  Travailleurs  de  la  Mer."  By 
Victor  Hugo.  A.  Lacroix,  Verborckhoven  et  Com- 
pagnie,  Bruxelles;  F.  W.  Christern,  New  York, 
1866.  Originally  published  in  The  Nation,  April  12, 
1866. 


188 


XXIII.  FELIX  HOLT,  THE  RADICAL 200 

A  review  of  " Felix  Holt,  the  Radical."    By  George 
<    Eliot.     New  York:    Harper   and    Brothers,    1866. 
Originally   published    in    The   Nation,   August   1 6, 
1866. 

XXIV.  EUGENIE  DE  GUERIN'S  LETTERS      .     .     .     209 

A  review  of  "  Lettres  d' Eugenie  de  Guerin."    Paris: 
,          Didier,  1866.     New  York:  Alexander  Strahan  and 
Company,  1866.  ;  Originally  published  in  The  Nation, 
September  13,  1866. 

XXV.   THE  LAST  FRENCH  NOVEL 219 

A   review  of    "Affaire   Clemenceau :    Memoire   de 
f  1' Accuse."     By  Alexandre  Dumas.     Paris:  Michel 

Levy,  1866.     Originally  published  in   The  Nation, 
October  n,  1866. 


XX 


I 

Fiction  and  Sir  Walter  Scott 

TITE  opened  this  work  with  the  hope  of  finding 
a  general  survey  of  the  nature  and  princi 
ples  of  the  subject  of  which  it  professes  to  treat. 
Its  title  had  led  us  to  anticipate  some  attempt  to 
codify  the  vague  and  desultory  canons,  which 
cannot,  indeed,  be  said  to  govern,  but  which  in 
some  measure  define,  this  department  of  litera 
ture.  We  had  long  regretted  the  absence  of  any 
critical  treatise  upon  fiction.  But  our  regret  was 
destined  to  be  embittered  by  disappointment. 

The  title  of  the  volume  before  us  is  a  misnomer. 
The  late  Mr.  Senior  would  have  done  better  to 
call  his  book  Essays  on  Fictions.  Essays  on  the 
Novelists,  even,  would  have  been  too  pretentious 
a  name.  For  in  the  first  place,  Mr.  Senior's  novel 
ists  are  but  five  in  number;  and  in  the  second,  we 
are  treated,  not  to  an  examination  of  their  general 
merits,  but  to  an  exposition  of  the  plots  of  their 
different  works.  These  Essays,  we  are  told,  ap 
peared  in  four  of  the  leading  English  Reviews  at 
intervals  from  the  year  1821  to  the  year  1857. 
On  the  whole,  we  do  not  think  they  were  worth 
this  present  resuscitation.  Individually  respect- 

" Essays  on  Fiction.'*     By  Nassau  W.  Senior.     London: 
1864. 

I 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

able  enough  in  their  time  and  place,  they  yet 
make  a  very  worthless  book.  It  is  not  necessarily 
very  severe  censure  of  a  magazine  article  to  say 
that  it  contains  nothing.  Sandwiched  between 
two  disquisitions  of  real  merit,  it  may  subsist  for 
a  couple  of  weeks  upon  the  accidental  glory  of  its 
position.  But  when  half  a  dozen  empty  articles 
are  bound  together,  they  are  not  calculated  to 
form  a  very  substantial  volume.  Mr.  Senior's 
papers  may  incur  the  fate  to  which  we  are  told 
that  inanimate  bodies,  after  long  burial,  are  liable 
on  exposure  to  the  air,  —  they  crumble  into  noth 
ing.  Much  better  things  have  been  said  on  these 
same  authors  than  anything  Mr.  Senior  has  given 
us.  Much  wiser  dicta  than  his  lie  buried  in  the 
dusty  files  of  the  minor  periodicals.  His  remarks 
are  but  a  dull  restatement  of  the  current  literary 
criticism.  He  is  superficial  without  being  lively; 
he  is  indeed  so  heavy,  that  we  are  induced  to 
wonder  why  his  own  weight  does  not  force  him 
below  the  surface. 

But  he  brings  one  important  quality  to  his 
task.  He  is  evidently  a  very  good  novel-reader. 
For  this  alone  we  are  grateful.  By  profession  not 
a  critic  nor  a  maker  of  light  books,  he  yet  read 
novels  thoughtfully.  In  his  eyes,  we. fancy,  the 
half-hour  "  wasted  "  over  a  work  of  fiction  was  re 
covered  in  the  ensuing  half-hour's  meditation 
upon  it.  That  Mr.  Senior  was  indeed  what  is 
called  a  "confirmed"  novel-reader,  his  accurate 
memory  for  details,  his  patient  research  into  in- 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

consistencies,  —  dramatic,  historic,  geographic,  — „ 
abundantly  demonstrate.  The  literary  judgments 
of  persons  not  exclusively  literary  are  often  very 
pleasant.  There  are  some  busy  men  who  have 
read  more  romances  and  verses  than  twenty  idle 
women.  They  have  devoured  all  James  and 
Dumas  at  odd  hours.  They  have  become  thor 
oughly  acquainted  with  Bulwer,  Coventry  Pat- 
more,  and  the  morning  paper,  in  their  daily 
transit  to  their  place  of  business.  They  have 
taken  advantage  of  a  day  in  bed  to  review  all 
Richardson.  It  is  only  because  they  are  hard 
working  men  that  they  can  do  these  things.  They 
do  them  to  the  great  surprise  of  their  daughters 
and  sisters,  who  stay  at  home  all  day  to  practise 
listless  sonatas  and  read  the  magazines.  If  these 
ladies  had  spent  the  day  in  teaching  school,  in 
driving  bargains,  or  in  writing  sermons,  they 
would  readily  do  as  much.  For  our  own  part,  we 
should  like  nothing  better  than  to  write  stories 
for  weary  lawyers  and  schoolmasters.  Idle  peo 
ple  are  satisfied  with  the  great  romance  of  doing 
nothing.  But  busy  people  come  fresh  to  their 
idleness.  The  imaginative  faculty,  which  has 
been  gasping  for  breath  all  day  under  the  great 
pressure  of  reason,  bursts  forth  when  its  possessor 
is  once  ensconced  under  the  evening  lamp,  and 
draws  a  long  breath  in  the  fields  of  fiction.  It  fills 
its  lungs  for  the  morrow.  Sometimes,  we  regret 
to  say,  it  fills  them  in  rather  a  fetid  atmos 
phere;  but  for  the  most  part  it  inhales  the  whole- 

3 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

some  air  of  Anglo-Saxon  good  sense.  Certain 
young  persons  are  often  deeply  concerned  £t  their 
elders'  interest  in  a  book  which  they  themselves 
have  voted  either  very  dull  or  very  silly.  The 
truth  is,  that  their  elders  are  more  credulous  than 
they.  Young  persons,  however  they  may  out 
grow  the  tendency  in  later  life,  are  often  more  or 
less  romancers  on  their  own  account.  While  the 
tendency  lasts,  they  are  very  critical  in  the  matter 
of  fictions.  It  is  often  enough  to  damn  a  well- 
intentioned  story,  that  the  heroine  should  be 
called  Kate  rather  than  Katherine;  the  hero  An 
thony  rather  than  Ernest.  These  same  youthful 
critics  will  be  much  more  impartial  at  middle  age. 
Many  a  matron  of  forty  will  manage  to  squeeze 
out  a  tear  over  the  recital  of  a  form  of  courtship 
which  at  eighteen  she  thought  absurdly  improb 
able.  She  will  be  plunged  in  household  cares;  her 
life  will  have  grown  prosaic;  her  thoughts  will 
have  overcome  their  bad  habits.  It  would  seem, 
therefore,  that  as  her  knowledge  of  life  has  in 
creased,  her  judgment  of  fiction,  which  is  but  a 
reflection  of  life,  should  have  become  more  unerr 
ing.  But  it  is  a  singular  fact,  that  as  even  the 
most  photographically  disposed  novels  address 
pre-eminently  the  imagination,  her  judgment,  if 
it  be  of  the  average  weight,  will  remain  in  abey 
ance,  while  her  rejuvenated  imagination  takes  a 
holiday.  The  friends  of  a  prolific  novelist  must 
be  frequently  tempted  to  wonder  at  the  great 
man's  fertility  of  invention,  and  to  deprecate  its 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

moral  effects.  An  author's  wife,  sitting  by  his 
study-table,  and  reading  page  after  page  of  man 
uscript  as  he  dashes  it  off,  will  not  be  unlikely  to 
question  him  thus:  "Do  you  never  weary  of  this 
constant  grinding  out  of  false  persons  and  events? 
To  tell  the  truth,  I  do.  I  would  rather  not  read 
any  more,  if  you  please.  It's  very  pretty,  but 
there's  too  much  of  it.  It's  all  so  untrue.  I  be 
lieve  I  will  go  up  to  the  nursery.  Do  you  never 
grow  sick  of  this  atmosphere  of  lies?"  To  which 
the  prolific  novelist  will  probably  reply:  "Some 
times;  but  not  by  any  means  so  often  as  you 
might  suppose.  Just  as  the  habitually  busy  man 
is  the  best  novel-reader,  so  he  is  the  best  novel- 
writer;  so  the  best  novelist  is  the  busiest  man.  It 
is,  as  you  say,  because  I  ' grind  out'  my  men  and 
women  that  I  endure  them.  It  is  because  I  create 
them  by  the  sweat  of  my  brow  that  I  venture  to 
look  them  in  the  face.  My  work  is  my  salvation. 
If  this  great  army  of  puppets  came  forth  at  my 
simple  bidding,  then  indeed  I  should  die  of  their 
senseless  clamor.  But  as  the  matter  stands,  they 
are  my  very  good  friends.  The  pains  of  labor 
regulate  and  consecrate  my  progeny.  If  it  were 
as  easy  to  write  novels  as  to  read  them,  then,  too, 
my  stomach  might  rebel  against  the  phantom 
peopled  atmosphere  which  I  have  given  myself  to 
breathe.  If  the  novelist  endowed  with  the  great 
est  *  facility'  ever  known  wrote  with  a  tenth  part 
of  the  ease  attributed  to  him,  then  again  his  self- 
sufficiency  might  be  a  seventh  wonder.  But  he 

5 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

only  half  suffices  to  himself,  and  it  is  the  constant 
endeavor  to  supply  the  missing  half,  to  make  both 
ends  meet,  that  reconciles  him  to  his  occupation." 

But  we  have  wandered  from  our  original  proposi 
tion;  which  was,  that  the  judgments  of  intelligent 
half-critics,  like  Mr.  Senior,  are  very  pleasant  to 
serious  critics.  That  is,  they  would  be  very 
pleasant  in  conversation;  but  they  are  hardly 
worth  the  trouble  of  reading.  A  person  who  dur 
ing  a  long  life  has  kept  up  with  the  light  litera 
ture  of  his  day,  if  he  have  as  good  a  memory  as 
Mr.  Senior,  will  be  an  interesting  half-hour's 
companion.  He  will  remind  you  of  a  great  deal 
that  you  have  forgotten.  This  will  be  his  prin 
cipal  merit.  This  is  Mr.  Senior's  chief  merit  in 
the  present  volume. 

His  five  authors  are  Scott,  Bulwer,  Thackeray, 
Mrs.  Stowe,  and  —  Colonel  Senior.  We  are  at 
loss  to  understand  this  latter  gentleman's  pres 
ence  in  so  august  a  company.  He  wrote,  indeed, 
a  tale  called  "Charles  Vernon",  and  we  believe 
him  to  be  a  relative  of  the  author.  His  presence 
was  doubtless  very  good  fun  to  the  Messrs.  Senior, 
but  it  is  rather  poor  fun  to  the  public.  It  must  be 
confessed,  however,  that  Mr.  Senior  has  restrained 
the  partiality  of  blood  to  decent  limits.  He  uses 
his  kinsman  chiefly  as  a  motive  for  an  aesthetic 
dissertation  of  questionable  soundness;  and  he 
praises  his  story  no  more  than,  to  judge  from  two 
or  three  extracts,  it  deserves. 

He  begins  with  Sir  Walter  Scott.  The  articles 
6 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

of  which  the  paper  on  Scott  is  composed  were 
written  while  the  Waverley  Novels  were  in  their 
first  editions.  In  our  opinion  this  fact  is  their 
chief  recommendation.  It  is  interesting  to  learn 
the  original  effect  of  these  remarkable  books.  It 
is  pleasant  to  see  their  classical  and  time-honored 
figures  dealt  with  as  the  latest  sensations  of  the 
year.  In  the  year  1821,  the  authorship  of  the 
novels  was  still  unavowed.  But  we  may  gather 
from  several  of  Mr.  Senior's  remarks  the  general 
tendency  of  the  public  faith.  The  reviewer  has 
several  sly  hits  at  the  author  of  "Marmion."  He 
points  out  a  dozen  coincidences  in  the  talent  and 
treatment  of  the  poet  and  the  romancer.  And  he 
leaves  the  intelligent  reader  to  draw  his  own  con 
clusions.  After  a  short  preface  he  proceeds  to  the 
dismemberment  of  each  of  the  novels,  from  "Rob 
Roy"  downward.  In  retracing  one  by  one  these 
long-forgotten  plots  and  counter-plots,  we  yield 
once  more  to  something  of  the  great  master's 
charm.  We  are  inclined  to  believe  that  this 
charm  is  proof  against  time.  The  popularity 
which  Mr.  Senior  celebrated  forty  years  ago  has 
in  no  measure  subsided.  The  only  perceptible 
change  in  Sir  Walter's  reputation  is  indeed  the 
inevitable  lot  of  great  writers.  He  has  submitted 
to  the  somewhat  attenuating  ordeal  of  classifica 
tion;  he  has  become  a  standard  author.  He  has 
been  provided  with  a  seat  in  our  literature;  and 
if  his  visible  stature  has  been  by  just  so  much  cur 
tailed,  we  must  remember  that  it  is  only  the  pass- 

7 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

ing  guests  who  remain  standing.  Mr.  Senior  is  a 
great  admirer  of  Sir  Walter,  as  may  be  gathered 
from  the  fact  that  he  devotes  two  hundred  pages 
to  him.  And  yet  he  has  a  keen  eye  for  his  defects; 
and  these  he  correctly  holds  to  be  very  numerous. 
Yet  he  still  loves  him  in  spite  of  his  defects; 
which  we  think  will  be  the  permanent  attitude  of 
posterity. 

Thirty  years  have  elapsed  since  the  publica 
tion  of  the  last  of  the  Waverley  series.  During 
thirty  years  it  has  been  exposed  to  the  public 
view.  And  meanwhile  an  immense  deal  has  been 
accomplished  in  the  department  of  fiction.  A 
vast  army  has  sprung  up,  both  of  producers  and 
consumers.  To  the  latter  class  a  novel  is  no  longer 
the  imposing  phenomenon  it  was  in  Sir  Walter's 
time.  It  implies  no  very  great  talent;  ingenuity 
is  held  to  be  the  chief  requisite  for  success.  And 
indeed  to  write  a  readable  novel  is  actually  a 
task  of  so  little  apparent  difficulty,  that  with 
many  popular  writers  the  matter  is  a  constant 
trial  of  speed  with  the  reading  public.  This  was 
very  much  the  case  with  Sir  Walter.  His  facility 
in  composition  was  almost  as  great  as  that  of 
Mrs.  Henry  Wood,  of  modern  repute.  But  it 
was  the  fashion  among  his  critics  to  attribute  this 
remarkable  fact  rather  to  his  transcendent  strength 
than  to  the  vulgarity  of  his  task.  This  was  a  wise 
conviction.  Mrs.  Wood  writes  three  volumes  in 
three  months,  to  last  three  months.  Sir  Walter 
performed  the  same  feat,  and  here,  after  the 

8 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

lapse  of  forty  years,  we  still  linger  over  those 
hasty  pages.  And  we  do  it  in  the  full  cognizance 
of  faults  which  even  Mrs.  Wood  has  avoided,  of 
foibles  for  which  she  would  blush.  The  public 
taste  has  been  educated  to  a  spirit  of  the  finest 
discernment,  the  sternest  exaction.  No  publisher 
would  venture  to  offer  "Ivanhoe"  in  the  year 
1864  as  a  novelty.  The  secrets  of  the  novelist's 
craft  have  been  laid  bare;  new  contrivances  have 
been  invented;  and  as  fast  as  the  old  machinery 
wears  out,  it  is  repaired  by  the  clever  artisans  of 
the  day.  Our  modern  ingenuity  works  prodigies 
of  which  the  great  Wizard  never  dreamed.  And 
besides  ingenuity  we  have  had  plenty  of  genius. 
We  have  had  Dickens  and  Thackeray.  Twenty 
other  famous  writers  are  working  in  the  midst  of 
us.  The  authors  of  "Amyas  Leigh",  of  "The 
Cloister  and  the  Hearth",  of  "Romola",  have  all 
overtaken  the  author  of  "Waverley"  in  his  own 
walk.  Sir  Edward  Bulwer  has  produced  several 
historical  tales,  which,  to  use  an  expressive  vul 
garism,  have  "gone  down"  very  extensively. 
And  yet  old-fashioned,  ponderous  Sir  Walter 
holds  his  own. 

He  was  the  inventor  of  a  new  style.  We  all 
know  the  immense  advantage  a  craftsman  de 
rives  from  this  fact.  He  was  the  first  to  sport  a 
fashion  which  was  eventually  taken  up.  For 
many  years  he  enjoyed  the  good  fortune  of  a 
patentee.  It  is  difficult  for  the  present  genera 
tion  to  appreciate  the  blessings  of  this  fashion. 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

But  when  we  review  the  modes  prevailing  for 
twenty  years  before,  we  see  almost  as  great  a 
difference  as  a  sudden  transition  from  the  Spen 
serian  ruff  to  the  Byronic  collar.  We  may  best 
express  Scott's  character  by  saying  that,  with 
one  or  two  exceptions,  he  was  the  first  English 
prose  story-teller.  He  was  the  first  fictitious 
writer  who  addressed  the  public  from  its  own 
level,  without  any  preoccupation  of  place.  Rich 
ardson  is  classified  simply  by  the  matter  of  length. 
He  is  neither  a  romancer  nor  a  story-teller:  he  is 
simply  Richardson.  The  works  of  Fielding  and 
Smollett  are  less  monumental,  yet  we  cannot  help 
feeling  that  they  too  are  writing  for  an  age  in 
which  a  single  novel  is  meant  to  go  a  great  way. 
And  then  these  three  writers  are  emphatically 
preachers  and  moralists.  In  the  heart  of  their 
productions  lurks  a  didactic  raison  d'etre.  Even 
Smollett  —  who  at  first  sight  appears  to  recount 
his  heroes'  adventures  very  much  as  Leporello  in 
the  opera  rehearses  the  exploits  of  Don  Juan  - 
aims  to  instruct  and  to  edify.  To  posterity  one 
of  the  chief  attractions  of  "Tom  Jones"  is  the 
fact  that  its  author  was  one  of  the  masses,  that 
he  wrote  from  the  midst  of  the  working,  suffering 
mortal  throng.  But  we  feel  guilty  in  reading  the 
book  in  any  such  disposition  of  mind.  We  feel 
guilty,  indeed,  in  admitting  the  question  of  art  or 
science  into  our  considerations.  The  story  is  like 
a  vast  episode  in  a  sermon  preached  by  a  grandly 
humorous  divine;  and  however  we  may  be  enter- 

10 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

tained  by  the  way,  we  must  not  forget  that  our 
ultimate  duty  is  to  be  instructed.  With  the 
minister's  week-day  life  we  have  no  concern:  for 
the  present  he  is  awful,  impersonal  Morality;  and 
we  shall  incur  his  severest  displeasure  if  we  view 
him  as  Henry  Fielding,  Esq.,  as  a  rakish  man  of 
letters,  or  even  as  a  figure  in  English  literature. 
"Waverley"  was  the  first  novel  which  was  self- 
forgetful.  It  proposed  simply  to  amuse  the  reader, 
as  an  old  English  ballad  amused  him.  It  under 
took  to  prove  nothing  but  facts.  It  was  the  novel 
irresponsible. 

We  do  not  mean  to  say  that  Scott's  great  suc 
cess  was  owing  solely  to  this,  the  freshness  of  his 
method.  This  was,  indeed,  of  great  account,  but 
it  was  as  nothing  compared  with  his  own  intel 
lectual  wealth.  Before  him  no  prose-writer  had 
exhibited  so  vast  and  rich  an  imagination:  it  had 
not,  indeed,  been  supposed  that  in  prose  the  im 
aginative  faculty  was  capable  of  such  extended 
use.  Since  Shakespeare,  no  writer  had  created  so 
immense  a  gallery  of  portraits,  nor,  on  the  whole, 
had  any  portraits  been  so  lifelike.  Men  and 
women,  for  almost  the  first  time  out  of  poetry, 
were  presented  in  their  habits  as  they  lived.  The 
Waverley  characters  were  all  instinct  with  some 
thing  of  the  poetic  fire.  To  our  present  taste 
many  of  them  may  seem  little  better  than  lay- 
figures.  But  there  are  many  kinds  of  lay-figures. 
A  person  who  goes  from  the  workshop  of  a  carver 
of  figure-heads  for  ships  to  an  exhibition  of  wax- 

ii 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

work,  will  find  in  the  latter  the  very  reflection  of 
nature.  And  even  when  occasionally  the  waxen 
visages  are  somewhat  inexpressive,  he  can  con 
sole  himself  with  the  sight  of  unmistakable  velvet 
and  brocade  and  tartan.  Scott  went  to  his  prose 
task  with  essentially  the  same  spirit  which  he  had 
brought  to  the  composition  of  his  poems.  Between 
these  two  departments  of  his  work  the  difference 
is  very  small.  Portions  of  "Marmion"  are  very 
good  prose;  portions  of  "Old  Mortality"  are 
tolerable  poetry.  Scott  was  never  a  very  deep, 
intense,  poetic  poet:  his  verse  alone  was  unflagging. 
So  when  he  attacked  his  prose  characters  with  his 
habitual  poetic  inspiration,  the  harmony  of  style 
was  hardly  violated.  It  is  a  great  peculiarity, 
and  perhaps  it  is  one  of  the  charms  of  his  historical 
/  tales,  that  history  is  dealt  with  in  all  poetic  rev 
erence.  He  is  tender  of  the  past:  he  knows  that 
she  is  frail.  He  certainly  knows  it.  Sir  Walter 
could  not  have  read  so  widely  or  so  curiously  as 
he  did,  without  discovering  a  vast  deal  that  was 
gross  and  ignoble  in  bygone  times.  But  he  ex 
cludes  these  elements  as  if  he  feared  they  would 
clash  with  his  numbers.  He  has  the  same  indiffer 
ence  to  historic  truth  as  an  epic  poet,  without,  in 
the  novels,  having  the  same  excuse.  We  write 
historical  tales  differently  now.  We  acknowledge 
the  beauty  and  propriety  of  a  certain  poetic 
reticence.  But  we  confine  it  to  poetry.  The  task 
of  the  historical  story-teller  is,  not  to  invest,  but 
to  divest  the  past.  Tennyson's  "Idyls  of  the 

12 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

King"  are  far  more  one-sided,  if  we  may  so  ex 
press  it,  than  anything  of  Scott's.  But  imagine 
what  disclosures  we  should  have  if  Mr.  Charles 
Reade  were  to  take  it  into  his  head  to  write  a 
novel  about  King  Arthur  and  his  times. 

Having  come  thus  far,  we  are  arrested  by  the 
sudden  conviction  that  it  is  useless  to  dogmatize 
upon  Scott;  that  it  is  almost  ungrateful  to  criti 
cize  him.  He,  least  of  all,  would  have  invited  or 
sanctioned  any  curious  investigation  of  his  works. 
They  were  written  without  pretense:  all  that  has 
been  claimed  for  them  has  been  claimed  by  others 
than  their  author.  They  are  emphatically  works 
of  entertainment.  As  such  let  us  cherish  and  pre 
serve  them.  Say  what  we  will,  we  should  be  very 
sorry  to  lose,  and  equally  sorry  to  mend  them. 
There  are  few  of  us  but  can  become  sentimental 
over  the  uncounted  hours  they  have  cost  us. 
There  are  moments  of  high-strung  sympathy  with 
the  spirit  which  is  abroad  when  we  might  find 
them  rather  dull  —  in  parts;  but  they  are  capital 
books  to  have  read.  Who  would  forego  the  com 
panionship  of  all  those  shadowy  figures  which 
stand  side  by  side  in  their  morocco  niches  in 
yonder  mahogany  cathedral?  What  youth  would 
willingly  close  his  eyes  upon  that  dazzling  array 
of  female  forms,  —  so  serried  that  he  can  hardly 
see  where  to  choose,  —  Rebecca  of  York,  Edith 
Plantagenet,  Mary  of  Scotland,  sweet  Lucy 
Ashton?  What  maiden  would  consent  to  drop 
the  dear  acquaintance  of  Halbert  Glendinning, 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

of  Wilfred  of  Ivanhoe,  of  Roland  Graeme  and 
Henry  Morton?  Scott  was  a  born  story-teller: 
we  can  give  him  no  higher  praise.  Surveying  his 
works,  his  character,  his  method,  as  a  whole,  we 
can  liken  him  to  nothing  better  than  to  a  strong 
and  kindly  elder  brother,  who  gathers  his  juvenile 
public  about  him  at  eventide,  and  pours  out  a 
stream  of  wondrous  improvisation.  Who  can 
not  remember  an  experience  like  this?  On  no 
occasion  are  the  delights  of  fiction  so  intense. 
Fiction?  These  are  the  triumphs  of  fact.  In  the 
richness  of  his  invention  and  memory,  in  the  in 
finitude  of  his  knowledge,  in  his  improvidence  for 
the  future,  in  the  skill  with  which  he  answers,  or 
rather  parries,  sudden  questions,  in  his  low- 
voiced  pathos  and  his  resounding  merriment,  he 
is  identical  with  the  ideal  fireside  chronicler.  And 
thoroughly  to  enjoy  him,  we  must  again  become 
as  credulous  as  children  at  twilight. 

The  only  other  name  of  equal  greatness  with 
Scott's  handled  by  Mr.  Senior  is  Thackeray's. 
His  remarks  upon  Thackeray  are  singularly  point 
less.  He  tells  us  that  "Vanity  Fair"  is  a  re 
markable  book;  but  a  person  whose  knowledge  of 
Thackeray  was  derived  from  Mr.  Senior's  article 
would  be  surely  at  a  loss  to  know  wherein  it  is 
remarkable.  To  him  it  seems  to  have  been  above 
all  amusing.  We  confess  that  this  was  not  our 
impression  of  the  book  on  our  last  reading.  We 
remember  once  witnessing  a  harrowing  melodrama 
in  a  country  playhouse,  where  we  happened  to  be 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

seated  behind  a  rustic  young  couple  who  labored 
under  an  almost  brutal  incapacity  to  take  the 
play  as  it  was  meant.  They  were  like  blood 
hounds  on  the  wrong  track.  They  laughed  up 
roariously,  whereas  the  great  point  of  the  piece 
was  that  they  should  weep.  They  found  the 
horrors  capital  sport,  and  when  the  central  horror 
reached  its  climax,  their  merriment  had  assumed 
such  violence  that  the  prompter,  at  the  cost  of  all 
dramatic  vrai semblance^  had  to  advance  to  the 
footlights  and  inform  them  that  he  should  be 
obliged  to  suspend  the  performance  until  betwixt 
them  they  could  compose  a  decent  visage.  We 
can  imagine  some  such  stern  inclination  on  the 
part  of  the  author  of  "Vanity  Fair",  on  learning 
that  there  were  those  in  the  audience  who  mistook 
his  performance  for  a  comedy. 

We  have  no  space  to  advert  to  Mr.  Senior's  ob 
servations  upon  Bulwer.  They  are  at  least  more 
lenient  than  any  we  ourselves  should  be  tempted 
to  make.  As  for  the  article  on  Mrs.  Stowe,  it  is 
quite  out  of  place.  It  is  in  no  sense  of  the  word  a 
literary  criticism.  It  is  a  disquisition  on  the 
prospects  of  slavery  in  the  United  States. 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 


II 

Trescott's 


volume  before  us  is  characterized  by  that 
•*•  venturesome,  unprincipled  literary  spirit,  de 
fiant  alike  of  wisdom  and  taste,  which  has  been 
traceable  through  Miss  Prescott's  productions, 
from  "Sir  Rohan's  Ghost"  downward.  We  looked 
upon  this  latter  work,  at  the  time  of  its  publica 
tion,  as  the  very  apotheosis  of  the  picturesque; 
but  "Sir  Rohan's  Ghost",  "The  Amber  Gods", 
and  even  "The  Rim",  compared  with  "Azarian", 
are  admirably  sober  and  coherent.  Miss  Prescott 
has  steadily  grown  in  audacity,  and  in  that  disa 
greeable  audacity  which  seems  to  have  been  fos 
tered  rather  by  flattery  than  by  remonstrance. 
Let  her  pray  to  be  delivered  from  her  friends. 

What  manner  of  writing  is  it  which  lends  itself 
so  frankly  to  aberrations  of  taste?  It  is  that 
literary  fashion  which,  to  speak  historically,  was 
brought  into  our  literature  by  Tennyson's  poetry. 
The  best  name  for  it,  as  a  literary  style,  is  the  ideal 
descriptive  style.  Like  all  founders  of  schools, 
Tennyson  has  been  far  exceeded  by  his  disciples. 

"Azarian:  an  Episode."  By  Harriet  Elizabeth  Prescott. 
Boston:  1864. 

16 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

The  style  in  question  reposes  not  so  much  upon 
the  observation  of  the  objects  of  external  nature 
as  the  projection  of  one's  fancy  upon  them.  It 
may  be  seen  exemplified  in  its  youthful  vigor  in 
Tennyson's  "Dream  of  Fair  Women";  it  is  ex 
emplified  in  its  effete  old  age  in  Mr.  Alexander 
Smith  and  Miss  Fresco  tt,  passim. 

The  writer  of  a  work  of  fiction  has  this  advan 
tage  over  his  critic,  that  he  can  frequently  sub 
stantiate  his  cause  by  an  a  posteriori  scheme  of 
treatment.  For  this  reason,  it  is  often  difficult  to 
fasten  down  a  story-teller  to  his  premises,  and 
then  to  confront  him  with  his  aberrations.  For 
each  successive  delinquency  he  has  the  ready 
excuse  of  an  unimpeachable  intention.  Such  or 
such  a  glaring  blot  is  the  very  key-stone  of  his 
plan.  When  we  tell  Miss  Prescott  that  some  one 
of  her  tales  is  marvellously  void  of  human  nature 
and  false  to  actual  society,  she  may  meet  us  with 
the  reply  that  a  correct  portraiture  of  nature  and 
society  was  not  intended.  She  may  claim  the 
poet's  license.  And  superficially  she  will  have  the 
best  of  it.  But  woe  to  the  writer  who  claims 
the  poet's  license,  without  being  able  to  answer 
the  poet's  obligations;  to  the  writer  of  whatever 
class  who  subsists  upon  the  immunities, rather  than 
the  responsibilities,  of  his  task. 

The  subject  of  "Azarian"  is  sufficiently  dra 
matic.  A  young  orphan-girl  —  a  painter  of  flowers 
by  profession  —  allows  herself  to  become  engaged 
to  a  young  Greek  physician  resident  in  Boston. 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

Ruth  is  warm-hearted  and  patient;  Azarian  is 
cold-hearted,  selfish,  and  an  amateur  of  the  fine 
arts,  especially  that  of  flirting.  He  wearies  of  Ruth 
before  marriage,  —  slights,  neglects,  and  drives 
her  to  despair.  She  resolves  on  suicide;  but  when 
on  the  brink  of  destruction,  she  pauses  and  recon 
ciles  herself  to  life,  and,  the  engagement  with 
Azarian  being  broken  off  by  tacit  agreement,  to 
happiness. 

What  is  the  central  element  of  the  above  data? 
The  element  of  feeling.  W7hat  is  the  central 
element  of  the  tale  as  it  stands  written?  The 
element  of  words.  The  story  contains,  as  it  need 
contain,  but  few  incidents.  It  is  made  of  the 
stuff  of  a  French  etude.  Its  real  interest  lies  in  the 
history  of  two  persons*  moral  intercourse.  Instead 
of  this,  we  are  treated  to  an  elaborate  descrip 
tion  of  four  persons'  physical  aspect  and  costume, 
and  of  certain  aspects  of  inanimate  nature.  Of  hu 
man  nature  there  is  not  an  unadulterated  page  in 
the  book,  —  not  a  chapter  of  history.  From  be 
ginning  to  end  it  is  a  succession  of  forced  assaults 
upon  the  impregnable  stronghold  of  painting;  a 
wearisome  series  of  word-pictures,  linked  by  a 
slight  thread  of  narrative,  strung  together,  to  use 
one  of  Miss  Fresco  tt's  own  expressions,  like  "beads 
on  a  leash."  If  the  dictionary  were  a  palette  of 
colors,  and  a  goose-quill  a  brush,  Miss  Prescott 
would  be  a  very  clever  painter.  But  as  words 
possess  a  certain  inherent  dignity,  value,  and  in 
dependence,  language  being  rather  the  stamped 

18 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

and  authorized  coinage  which  expresses  the  value 
of  thought  than  the  brute  metal  out  of  which  forms 
are  moulded,  her  pictures  are  invariably  incoherent 
and  meaningless.  What  do  we  know  of  Ruth  and  j 
Azarian,  of  Charmian  and  Madame  Saratov? 
Next  to  nothing:  the  little  that  we  know  we  learn 
in  spite  of  Miss  Prescott's  fine  writing.  These 
persons  are  localized,  christened  (we  admit  in 
rather  a  pagan  fashion),  provided  with  matter-of- 
fact  occupations.  They  are  Bostonians  of  the  nine 
teenth  century.  The  little  drama  in  which  they 
have  parts,  or  something  very  like  it,  is  acted  every 
day,  anywhere  between  the  Common  and  the 
river.  There  is,  accordingly,  every  presumptive 
reason  why  we  should  feel  conscious  of  a  certain 
affinity  with  them.  But  from  any  such  sensation 
we  are  effectually  debarred  by  Miss  Prescott's 
inordinate  fondness  for  the  picturesque. 

There  is  surely  no  principle  of  fictitious  com 
position  so  true  as  this,  —  that  an  author's  para 
mount  charge  is  the  cure  of  souls,  to  the  subjection, 
and  if  need  be  to  the  exclusion,  of  the  picturesque. 
Let  him  look  to  his  characters:  his  figures  will 
take  care  of  themselves.  Let  the  author  who  has 
grasped  the  heart  of  his  purpose  trust  to  his  reader's 
sympathy:  from  that  vantage-ground  he  may 
infallibly  command  it.  In  what  we  may  call  sub 
ordinate  points,  that  is,  in  Miss  Prescott's  promi 
nent  and  obtrusive  points,  it  is  an  immense  succor. 
It  supplements  his  intention.  Given  an  animate 
being,  you  may  readily  clothe  it  in  your  mind's  eye 

'9 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

with  a  body,  a  local  habitation,  and  a  name.  Given 
we  say,  an  animate  being:  that  is  the  point.  The 
reader  who  is  set  face  to  face  with  a  gorgeous  doll 
will  assuredly  fail  to  inspire  it  with  sympathetic 
life.  To  do  so,  he  must  have  become  excited  and 
interested.  What  is  there  in  a  doll  to  excite  and 
interest?  ( 

In  reading  books  of  the  Azarian  school,  —  for, 
alas!  there  is  a  school,  —  we  have  often  devoutly 
wished  that  some  legal  penalty  were  attached 
to  the  use  of  description.  We  have  sighed  for  a 
novel  with  a  dramatis  personce  of  disembodied 
spirits.  Azarian  gives  his  name  to  two  hundred 
and  fifty  pages;  and  at  the  end  of  those  pages,  the 
chief  fact  with  which  he  is  associated  in  our  minds 
is  that  he  wore  his  hair  in  "waves  of  flaccid  gold." 
Of  Madame  Saratov  we  read  that  she  was  the 
widow  of  a  Russian  exile,  domesticated  in  Boston 
for  the  purpose  of  giving  lessons  in  French,  music, 
and  Russ,  and  of  educating  her  boys.  In  spite  of 
the  narrowness  of  means  attributable  to  a  lady  who 
follows  the  profession  of  teaching,  she  lives  in  a 
splendor  not  unworthy  of  the  Muscovite  Krem 
lin.  She  has  a  maid  to  haunt  her  steps;  her 
chosen  raiment  is  silks  and  velvets;  she  sleeps  in 
counterpanes  of  satin;  her  thimble,  when  she  sews, 
is  incrusted  at  the  base  with  pearls;  she  holds  a 
salony  and  treats  her  guests  to  draughts  of  "richly- 
rosy"  cordial.  One  of  her  dresses  is  a  gown  of 
green  Genoa  velvet,  with  peacock's  feathers  of  gor 
geous  green  and  gold.  What  do  you  think  of  that 

20 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

for  an  exiled  teacher  of  languages,  boasting  her 
self  Russian?  Perhaps,  after  all,  it  is  not  so  im 
probable.  In  the  person  of  Madame  Saratov, 
Miss  Prescott  had  doubtless  the  intention  of  a 
sufficiently  dramatic  character,  —  the  European 
mistress  of  a  salon.  But  her  primary  intention 
completely  disappears  beneath  this  thick  impasto 
of  words  and  images.  Such  is  the  fate  of  all  her 
creations:  either  they  are  still-born,  or  they  sur 
vive  but  for  a  few  pages;  she  smothers  them  with 
caresses. 

When  a  very  little  girl  becomes  the  happy  pos 
sessor  of  a  wax-doll,  she  testifies  her  affection  for 
it  by  a  fond  manipulation  of  its  rosy  visage.  If  the 
nose,  for  instance,  is  unusually  shapely  and  pretty, 
the  fact  is  made  patent  by  a  constant  friction 
of  the  finger-tips;  so  that  poor  dolly  is  rapidly 
smutted  out  of  recognition.  In  a  certain  sense 
we  would  compare  Miss  Prescott  to  such  a  little 
girl.  She  fingers  her  puppets  to  death.  I  "Good 
heavens,  Madam!"  we  are  forever  on  the  point  of 
exclaiming,  "let  the  poor  things  speak  for  them 
selves.  What?  are  you  afraid  they  can't  stand 
alone  ?"j  Even  the  most  clearly  defined  character 
would  succumb  beneath  this  repeated  posing, 
attitudinizing,  and  changing  of  costume.  Take 
any  breathing  person  from  the  ranks  of  fiction,  - 
Hetty  in  "Adam  Bede",  or  Becky  Sharp  the  Great 
(we  select  women  advisedly,  for  it  is  known  that 
they  can  endure  twenty  times  more  than  men  in 
this  respect),  —  place  her  for  a  few  pages  in  Miss 

21 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

Prescott's  charge,  and  what  will  be  the  result? 
Adieu,  dear  familiar  friend;  you  melt  like  wax  in  a 
candle.  Imagine  Thackeray  forever  pulling  Re 
becca's  curls  and  settling  the  folds  of  her  dress. 

This  bad'  h^bit  of  Miss  Prescott's  is  more  than 
an  offence  against  art.  Nature  herself  resents  it. 
It  is  an  injustice  to  men  and  women  to  assume  that 
the  fleshly  element  carries  such  weight.  In  the 
history  of  a  loving  and  breaking  heart,  is  that  the 
only  thing  worth  noticing?  Are  the  external  signs 
and  accidents  of  passion  the  only  points  to  be 
detailed  ?  What  we  want  is  Passion's  self,  —  her 
language,  her  ringing  voice,  her  gait,  the  present 
ment  of  her  deeds.  What  do  we  care  about  the 
beauty  of  man  or  woman  in  comparison  with  their 
humanity?  In  a  novel  we  crave  the  spectacle 
of  that  of  which  we  may  feel  that  we  know  it. 
The  only  lasting  fictions  are  those  which  have 
spoken  to  the  reader's  heart,  and  not  to  his  eye; 
those  which  have  introduced  him  to  an  atmosphere 
in  which  it  was  credible  that  human  beings  might 
exist,  and  to  human  beings  with  whom  he  might 
feel  tempted  to  claim  kinship. 

When  once  a  work  of  fiction  may  be  classed  as  a 
novel,  its  foremost  claim  to  merit,  and  indeed  the 
measure  of  its  merit,  is  its  truth,  —  its  truth  to 
something,  however  questionable  that  thing  may 
be  in  point  of  morals  or  of  taste.  "Azarian"  is 
true  to  nothing.  No  one  ever  looked  like  Azarian, 
talked  like  him,  nor,  on  the  whole,  acted  like  him; 
for  although  his  specific  deeds,  as  related  in  the 

22 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

volume  before  us,  are  few  and  far  between,  we  find 
it  difficult  to  believe  that  any  one  ever  pursued 
a  line  of  conduct  so  utterly  meaningless  as  that 
which  we  are  invited,  or  rather  allowed,  to  attri 
bute  to  him. 

We  have  called  Miss  Prescott's  manner  the 
descriptive  manner;  but  in  so  doing  we  took  care  to 
distinguish  it  from  the  famous  realistic  system 
which  has  asserted  itself  so  largely  in  the  fictitious 
writing  of  the  last  few  years.  It  is  not  a  counsel 
we  would  indiscriminately  bestow,  —  on  the  con 
trary,  we  would  gladly  see  the  vulgar  realism  which 
governs  the  average  imagination  leavened  by  a 
little  old-fashioned  idealism,  —  but  Miss  Presco^t, 
if  she  hopes  to  accomplish  anything  worth  accom 
plishing,  must  renounce  new-fashioned  idealism 
for  a  while,  and  diligently  study  the  canons  of  the 
so-called  realist  school.  We  gladly  admit  that  she 
has  the  talent  to  profit  by  such  a  discipline.  But 
to  be  real  in  writing  is  to  describe;  such  is  the 
popular  notion.  Were  this  notion  correct,  Miss 
Prescott  would  be  a  very  good  realist,  —  none 
better.  But  for  this  fallacious  axiom  we  propose 
to  substitute  another,  which,  if  it  does  not  embrace 
the  whole  truth,  comes  several  degrees  nearer  to  it: 
to  be  real  in  writing  is  to  express;  whether  by 
description  or  otherwise  is  of  secondary  importance. 
The  short  tales  of  M.  Prosper  Merimee  are  emi 
nently  real;  but  he  seldom  or  never  describes:  he 
conveys.  It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  the  great 
names  in  the  realist  line  are  associated  with  a 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

pronounced  fondness  for  description.  It  is  for 
this  reason  that  we  remind  Miss  Prescott  of  them. 
Let  her  take  Balzac's  "Eugenie  Grandet",  for 
instance.  It  will  probably  be  affirmed  that  this 
story,  the  interest  of  which  is  to  the  full  as  human 
as  that  of  her  own,  is  equally  elaborate  in  the 
painting  of  external  objects.  But  such  an  asser 
tion  will  involve  a  mistake:  Balzac  does  not  paint, 
does  not  copy,  objects;  his  chosen  instrument 
being  a  pen,  he  is  content  to  write  them.  He  is 
literally  real:  he  presents  objects  as  they  are. 
The  scene  and  persons  of  his  drama  are  minutely 
described.  Grandet's  house,  his  sitting-room, 
his  habits,  his  appearance,  his  dress,  are  all  repro 
duced  with  the  fidelity  of  a  photograph.  The 
same  with  Madame  Grandet  and  Eugenie.  We 
are  exactly  informed  as  to  the  young  girl's  stat 
ure,  features,  and  dress.  The  same  with  Charles 
Grandet,  when  he  comes  upon  the  scene.  His 
coat,  his  trousers,  his  watch-chain,  his  cravat, 
the  curl  of  his  hair,  are  all  dwelt  upon.  We  almost 
see  the  musty  little  sitting-room  in  which  so  much 
of  the  action  goes  forward.  We  are  familiar  with 
the  gray  boiserie,  the  faded  curtains,  the  rickety 
card-tables,  the  framed  samplers  on  the  walls, 
Madame  Grandet's  foot-warmer,  and  the  table 
set  for  the  meagre  dinner.  And  yet  our  sense  of 
the  human  interest  of  the  story  is  never  lost.  Why 
is  this?  It  is  because  these  things  are  all  described 
only  in  so  far  as  they  bear  upon  the  action,  and  not 
in  the  least  for  themselves.  If  you  resolve  to 

24 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

describe  a  thing,  you  cannot  describe  it  too  care 
fully.  But  as  the  soul  of  a  novel  is  its  action,  you 
should  only  describe  those  things  which  are  ac 
cessory  to  the  action.  It  is  in  determining  what 
things  are  so  accessory  that  real  taste,  science,  and 
judgment  are  shown. 

The  reader  feels  that  Miss  Prescott  describes 
not  in  accordance  with  any  well-considered  plan,  \/ 
but  simply  for  the  sake  of  describing,  and  of  so  j/y> 
gratifying  her  almost  morbid  love  of  the  pictur-  ? 
esque.  There  is  a  reason  latent  in  every  one  of 
Balzac's  tales  why  such  things  should  appear  thus, 
and  such  persons  so,  —  a  clear,  well-defined  reason, 
easily  discoverable  by  the  observing  and  sym 
pathetic  eye.  Each  separate  part  is  conducive  to 
the  general  effect;  and  this  general  effect  has  been 
studied,  pondered,  analyzed:  in  the  end  it  is  pro 
duced.  Balzac  lays  his  stage,  sets  his  scene,  and 
introduces  his  puppets.  He  describes  them  once 
for  all;  this  done,  the  story  marches.  He  does  not 
linger  nervously  about  his  figures,  like  a  sculptor 
about  his  unfinished  clay-model,  administering  a 
stroke  here  and  afixing  a  lump  there.  He  has  done 
all  this  beforehand,  in  his  thoughts;  his  figures 
are  completed  before  the  story  begins.  This  latter 
fact  is  perhaps  one  of  the  most  valuable  in  regard 
to  Balzac.  His  story  exists  before  it  is  told;  it  j 
stands  complete  before  his  mind's  eye.  It  was  a 
characteristic  of  his  mind,  enriched  as  it  was  by 
sensual  observation,  to  see  his  figures  clearly  and 
fully  as  with  the  eye  of  sense.  So  seeing  them,  the 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

desire  was  irresistible  to  present  them  to  the 
reader.  How  clearly  he  saw  them  we  may  judge 
from  the  minuteness  of  his  presentations.  It  was 
clearly  done  because  it  was  scientifically  done. 
That  word  resumes  our  lesson.  He  set  down  things 
in  black  and  white,  not,  as  Miss  Prescott  seems 
vaguely  to  aim  at  doing,  in  red,  blue,  and  green,  — 
in  prose,  scientifically,  as  they  stood.  He  aimed  at 
local  color;  that  is,  at  giving  the  facts  of  things. 
To  determine  these  facts  required  labor,  foresight, 
reflection;  but  Balzac  shrank  from  no  labor  of  eye 
or  brain,  provided  he  could  adequately  cover  the 
framework  of  his  story. 

Miss  Prescott's  style  is  evidently  the  point  on 
which  she  bases  her  highest  claims  to  distinction. 
She  has  been  taught  that,  in  possessing  this  style, 
she  possesses  a  great  and  uncommon  gift.  Noth 
ing  is  more  false.  The  fine  writing  in  which 
"Azarian"  abounds  is  the  cheapest  writing  of  the 
day.  Every  magazine-story  bears  traces  of  it. 
It  is  so  widely  adopted,  because  to  a  person  of 
clever  fancy  there  is  no  kind  of  writing  that  is  so 
easy,  —  so  easy,  we  mean,  considering  the  effect 
produced.  Of  course  it  is  much  easier  to  write 
in  a  style  which  necessitates  no  looking  out  of 
words:  but  such  a  style  makes  comparatively 
little  impression.  The  manner  in  question  is 
easy,  because  the  writer  recognizes  no  standard  of 
truth  or  accuracy  by  which  his  performances 
may  be  measured.  He  does  not  transcribe  facts,  — 
facts  must  be  counted,  measured,  weighed,  which 

26 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

takes  far  too  much  trouble.  He  does  not  pa 
tiently  study  the  nature  and  appearance  of  a 
thing  until  he  has  won  from  it  the  confession  of 
that  absolute  appreciable  quality,  the  correct 
statement  of  which  is  alone  true  description;  he 
does  not  commit  himself  to  statements,  for  these 
are  dangerous  things;  he  does  not,  in  short,  ex 
tract;  he  affixes.  He  does  not  consult  the  object 
to  be  described,  so  recognizing  it  as  a  fact;  he 
consults  his  imagination,  and  so  constitutes  it  a 
theme  to  be  elaborated.  In  the  picture  which  he 
proceeds  to  make,  some  of  the  qualities  of  the 
object  will  certainly  be  found;  but  it  matters  little 
whether  they  are  the  chief  distinctive  ones,  — 
any  satisfy  his  conscience. 

All  writing  is  narration;  to  describe  is  simply  to 
narrate  things  in  their  order  of  place,  instead  of 
events  in  their  order  of  time.  If  you  consult  this 
order,  your  description  will  stand;  if  you  neglect  it, 
you  will  have  an  imposing  mass  of  words,  but  no 
recognizable  thing.  We  do  not  mean  to  say  that 
Miss  Prescott  has  a  wholly  commonplace  fancy. 
(We  use  the  word  commonplace  advisedly,  for 
there  are  no  commonplaces  so  vulgar  as  those 
chromatic  epigrams  which  mark  the  Tennysonian 
prose  school.)  On  the  contrary,  she  has  a  fancy 
which  would  serve  very  well  to  garnish  a  dish  of 
solid  fiction,  but  which  furnishes  poor  material 
for  the  body  of  the  dish.  These  clever  conceits, 
this  keen  eye  for  the  superficial  picturesque,  this 
inborn  love  of  bric-d-brac  and  sunsets,  may  be 

27 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

made  very  effectively  to  supplement  a  true 
dramatic  exposition;  but  they  are  a  wretched 
substitute  for  such.  And  even  in  bric-a-brac  and 
sunsets  Miss  Prescott's  execution  is  crude.  In 
her  very  specialty,  she  is  but  an  indifferent  artist. 
Who  is  so  clever  in  the  bric-d-brac  line  as  M. 
Theophile  Gautier?  He  takes  an  occasional 
liberty  with  the  French  language;  but,  on  the 
whole,  he  finds  his  best  account  in  a  policy  of 
studious  respect  even  for  her  most  irritating  forms 
of  conservatism.  The  consequence  is,  that  his 
efforts  in  this  line  are  unapproachable,  and,  what 
is  better,  irreproachable.  One  of  the  greatest 
dangers  to  which  those  who  pursue  this  line  are 
liable  is  the  danger  that  they  may  fall  into  the 
ridiculous.  By  a  close  adherence  to  that  medium 
of  expression  which  other  forms  of  thought  have 
made  respectable,  this  danger  is  effectually  set  at 
naught.  What  is  achieved  by  the  paternally 
governed  French  tongue  may  surely  be  effected  by 
that  chartered  libertine,  our  own.  Miss  Prescott 
uses  far  too  many  words,  synonymous  words  and 
meaningless  words.  Like  the  majority  of  female 
writers,  —  Mrs.  Browning,  George  Sand,  Gail 
Hamilton,  Mrs.  Stowe,  —  she  possesses  in  excess 
the  fatal  gift  of  fluency.  Her  paragraphs  read  as 
if  in  composition  she  completely  ignored  the  ex 
pedient  of  erasure.  What  painter  ever  painted  a 
picture  without  rubbing  out  and  transposing,  dis 
placing,  effacing,  replacing?  There  is  no  essential 
difference  of  system  between  the  painting  of  a 

28 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

picture  and  the  writing  of  a  novel.  Why  should 
the  novelist  expect  to  do  what  his  fellow-worker 
never  even  hopes  to  acquire  the  faculty  of  doing,  - 
execute  his  work  at  a  stroke?  It  is  plain  that  Miss 
Prescott  adds,  tacks  on,  interpolates,  piles  up,  if  we 
may  use  the  expression;  but  it  seems  very  doubt 
ful  if  she  often  takes  counsel  of  the  old  Horatian 
precept,  —  in  plain  English,  to  scratch  out.  A 
true  artist  should  be  as  sternly  just  as  a  Roman 
father.  A  moderate  exercise  of  this  Roman  justice 
would  have  reduced  "Azarian"  to  half  its  actual 
length.  The  various  descriptive  passages  would 
have  been  wonderfully  simplified,  and  we  might 
have  possessed  a  few  good  pictures. 

If  Miss  Prescott  would  only  take  such  good  old 
English  words  as  we  possess,  words  instinct  with 
the  meaning  of  centuries,  and,  having  fully  re 
solved  upon  that  which  she  wished  to  convey,  cast 
her  intention  in  those  familiar  terms  which  long 
use  has  invested  with  almost  absolute  force  of 
expression,  then  she  would  describe  things  in  a 
manner  which  could  not  fail  to  arouse  the  sym 
pathy,  the  interest,  the  dormant  memories  of  the 
reader.  What  is  the  possible  bearing  of  such 
phrases  as  "vermeil  ardency,"  or  "a  tang  of 
color"?  of  such  childish  attempts  at  alliteration 
-  the  most  frequent  bugbear  of  Miss  Prescott's 
readers  —  as  "studded  with  starry  sprinkle  and 
spatter  of  splendor,"  and  the  following  sentence, 
in  which,  speaking  of  the  leaves  of  the  blackberry- 
vine,  she  tells  us  that  they  are  "damasked  with 

29 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

deepening  layer  and  spilth  of  color,  brinded  and 
barred  and  blotted  beneath  the  dripping  fingers 
of  October,  nipped  by  nest-lining  bees,"  —  and, 
lastly,  "suffused  through  all  their  veins  with  the 
shining  soul  of  the  mild  and  mellow  season"? 

This  is  nothing  but  "words,  words,  words, 
Horatio!"  They  express  nothing;  they  only  seem 
to  express.  The  true  test  of  the  worth  of  a  prose 
description  —  to  simplify  matters  we  leave  poetry 
quite  out  of  the  question  —  is  one's  ability  to 
resolve  it  back  into  its  original  elements.  You 
construct  your  description  from  a  chosen  object; 
can  you,  conversely,  from  your  description  con 
struct  that  object?  We  defy  anyone  to  represent 
the  "fine  scarlet  of  the  blackberry- vine,"  and  "the 
gilded  bronze  of  beeches,"  -  fair  sentences  by 
themselves,  which  express  almost  as  much  as  we 
can  reasonably  hope  to  express  on  the  subject,  — 
under  the  inspiration  of  the  rhapsody  above 
quoted,  and  what  follows  it.  Of  course,  where  so 
much  is  attempted  in  the  way  of  expression,  some 
thing  is  sometimes  expressed.  But  with  Miss  Pres- 
cott  such  an  occasional  success  is  apt  to  be  what 
the  French  call  a  succes  manque.  This  is  the  fault 
of  what  our  authoress  must  allow  us  to  call  her 
inveterate  bad  taste;  for  whenever  she  has  said  a 
good  thing,  she  invariably  spoils  it  by  trying  to 
make  it  better:  to  let  well  enough  alone  is  indeed 
in  all  respects  the  great  lesson  which  experience 
has  in  store  for  her.  It  is  sufficiently  felicitous,  for 
instance,  as  such  things  go,  to  call  the  chandelier 

3° 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

of  a  theatre  "a  basket  of  light."  There  stands 
the  simple  successful  image.  But  Miss  Prescott 
immediately  tacks  on  the  assertion  that  it  "pours 
down  on  all  its  brimming  burden  of  lustre."  It 
would  be  bad  taste  again,  if  it  were  not  such  bad 
physiology,  to  speak  of  Azarian's  flaccid  hair 
being  "drenched  with  some  penetrating  perfume, 
an  Oriental  water  that  stung  the  brain  to  vigor." 
The  idea  that  a  man's  intellectual  mood  is  at  the 
mercy  of  his  pommade  is  one  which  we  recommend 
to  the  serious  consideration  of  barbers.  The 
reader  will  observe  that  Azarian's  hair  is  drenched: 
an  instance  of  the  habitual  intensity  of  Miss 
Prescott's  style.  The  word  intensity  expresses 
better  than  any  other  its  various  shortcomings, 
or  rather  excesses.  The  only  intensity  worth 
anything  in  writing  is  intensity  of  thought.  To 
endeavor  to  fortify  flimsy  conceptions  by  the 
constant  use  of  verbal  superlatives  is  like  painting 
the  cheeks  and  pencilling  the  eyebrows  of  a  corpse. 

Miss  Prescott  would  rightfully  resent  our  criti 
cism  if,  after  all,  we  had  no  counsel  to  offer.  Of 
course  our  advice  is  to  take  or  to  leave,  but  it 
is  due  to  ourselves  to  produce  it. 

We  would  earnestly  exhort  Miss  Prescott  to  be 
real,  to  be  true  to  something.  In  a  notice  of  Mr. 
Charles  Reade  recently  published  in  the  Atlantic, 
our  authoress  indulged  in  a  fling  at  Mr.  Anthony 
Trollope  for  what  she  probably  considers  his 
grovelling  fidelity  to  minute  social  truths.  But 
we  hold  it  far  better  to  be  real  as  Mr.  Trollope 

31 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

is  real,  than  to  be  ideal  after  the  fashion  of  the 
authoress  of  "Azarian."  As  in  the  writing  of 
fiction  there  is  no  grander  instrument  than  a 
potent  imagination,  such  as  Mr.  Hawthorne's,  for 
instance,  so  there  is  no  more  pernicious  depend 
ence  than  an  unbridled  fancy.  Mr.  Trollope  has 
not  the  imagination  of  Mr.  Reade,  his  strong 
grasp  of  the  possible;  but  he  has  a  delicate  per 
ception  of  the  actual  which  makes  every  whit 
as  firm  ground  to  work  upon.  This  delicate  per 
ception  of  the  actual  Miss  Prescott  would  do  well 
to  cultivate:  if  Mr.  Trollope  is  too  distasteful  to 
her,  she  may  cultivate  it  in  the  attentive  perusal 
of  Mr.  Reade,  in  whom  there  are  many  Trollopes. 
Let  her  not  fear  to  grovel,  but  take  note  of  what  is, 
constitute  herself  an  observer,  and  review  the  im 
measurable  treasures  she  has  slighted.  If  she  will 
conscientiously  do  this,  she  will  need  to  invent 
neither  new  and  unprecedented  phases  of  humanity 
nor  equally  unprecedented  nouns  and  adjectives. 
There  are  already  more  than  enough  for  the  novel 
ists  purpose.  All  we  ask  of  him  is  to  use  the 
material  ready  to  his  hand.  When  Miss  Prescott 
reconciles  herself  to  this  lowly  task,  then  and  then 
only  will  she  find  herself  truly  rich  in  resource. 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 


III 

J^indisfarn  £hase 

'TSHIS  is  a  fair  specimen  of  a  second-rate  novel, 
•*•  a  species  of  work  which  commands  a  certain 
degree  of  respect;  for  second-rate  novels  are  the 
great  literary  feature  of  the  day.  It  is  the  work 
of  a  man  who  has  no  vocation  for  his  task  except 
a  well-practised  hand,  and  who  would  yet  find  it 
very  hard  that  he  should  not  write  his  novel  with 
the  rest.  In  the  present  condition  of  literature, 
when  novel-writing  is  at  once  a  trade  and  a  past- 
time,  books  of  this  class  are  inevitable.  Let  us 
take  them  for  what  they  are  worth.  Both  in 
England  and  in  this  country  they  find  an  immense 
public  of  excellent  persons,  whose  chief  delight  in 
literature  is  the  contemplation  of  respectable^ 
mediocrity.  Such  works  as  "Lindisfarn  Chase" 
are  plentiful,  because  they  are  so  easy  to  write; 
they  are  popular,  because  they  are  so  easy  to  read. 
To  compose  a  novel  on  the  model  before  us, 
one  must  have  seen  a  good  many  well-bred  people, 
and  have  read  a  good  many  well-written  novels. 
These  qualifications  are  easily  acquired.  The 
novel  of  a  writer  who  possesses  them  will  be  (if  it 

"Lindisfarn  Chase."      By  T.  Adolphus  Trollope.      New 
York:  1864. 

33 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

is  successful)  a  reflection  of  the  manner  of  his 
social  equals  or  inferiors  and  of  his  literary  supe 
riors.  If  it  is  unsuccessful,  the  reason  will  prob 
ably  be  that  the  author  has  sought  inspiration  in 
his  social  superiors.  In  the  case  of  an  attempted 
portraiture  of  a  lower  order  of  society,  a  series  of 
false  representations  will  not  be  so  likely  to  prove 
fatal,  because  the  critics  and  the  reading  public 
are  not  so  well  informed  as  to  the  facts.  A  book 
like  "Lindisfarn  Chase"  might  almost  be  written 
by  recipe;  so  much  depends  upon  the  writer's 
familiarity  with  good  society,  and  upon  his  good 
taste;  so  little  depends  upon  his  real  dramatic 
perception.  The  first  requisite  is  to  collect  a 
large  number  of  persons,  so  many  that  you  have 
no  space  to  refine  upon  individuals,  even  if  you 
should  sometimes  feel  dangerously  tempted  to  do 
so;  to  give  these  persons  pleasant,  expressive 
names,  and  to  scatter  among  them  a  few  handfuls 
of  clever  description.  The  next  step  is  to  make  a 
fair  distribution  of  what  may  be  called  pre-his- 
toric  facts,  —  facts  which  are  referred  to  periods 
prior  to  the  opening  of  the  tale,  and  which  serve, 
as  it  were,  as  your  base  of  supplies  during  its 
progress.  According  as  these  facts  are  natural 
and  commonplace,  or  improbable  and  surprising, 
your  story  is  an  ordinary  novel  of  manners,  a 
sober  photograph  of  common  life,  or  a  romance. 
Their  great  virtue  is  to  relieve  the  writer  of  all 
analysis  of  character,  to  enable  him  to  forge  his 
interest  out  of  the  exhibition  of  circumstance 

34 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

rather  than  out  of  the  examination  of  motived 
The  work  before  us  affords  an  instance  to  the 
point. 

Mr.  Trollope  desires  to  represent  a  vicious  and 
intriguing  young  girl;  so  he  takes  an  English 
maiden,  and  supposes  her  to  have  been  educated 
in  Paris.  Vice  and  intrigue  are  conjured  up  by  a 
touch  of  the  pen.  Paris  covers  a  multitude  of 
sins.  Mr.  Trollope  fills  his  young  lady's  mouth 
with  French  phrases  and  allusions,  assures  us  that 
she  was  a  very  hard  case,  and  lo!  she  does  service 
as  a  complex  human  creature.  Margaret  Lindis- 
farn  is  a  weak  repetition  of  Thackeray's  Blanche 
Amory.  Heu  quanta  minus!  Mr.  Trollope  is  very 
far  from  possessing  even  his"  brother's  knowledge 
of  the  workings  of  young  girls'  hearts.  Young 
girls  are  seldom  so  passionless  as  Margaret  Lindis- 
farn.  Beautiful,  wealthy,  still  in  her  teens,  she  is 
represented  as  possessing  the  deep  diplomatic 
heart  of  an  old  gentlewoman  who  has  half  a  dozen 
daughters  on  her  hands.  But  granting  that  it  is 
possible  that  she  should  be  as  coldly  selfish  as  she 
is  made  out  to  be,  why  refer  it  all  to  Paris?  It  is 
surely  not  necessary  to  have  lived  in  Paris  to  be 
heartless.  Margaret  is  full  of  grace  and  tact,  and 
is  always  well-dressed:  a  residence  in  the  French 
capital  may  have  been  required  to  'explain  these 
advantages.  She  is  cold-hearted,  scheming,  and 
has  her  beautiful  eyes  perpetually  fastened  upon 
the  main  chance.  We  see  no  reason  why  these 
attributes  should  not  have  been  of  insular  growth. 

35 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

The  only  definite  character  we  are  able  to  assign 
to  the  book  is  that  of  an  argument  against  edu 
cating  English  youth  in  Paris.  A  paltry  aim,  the 
reader  may  say,  for  a  work  of  art  of  these  dimen 
sions.  He  will  say  truly:  but  from  such  topics  as 
this  is  the  English  fiction  of  the  present  day  glad 
to  draw  inspiration. 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 


IV 

Emily  Chester: 

book  is  so  well-meaning,  that  we  are  de- 
terred  by  a  feeling  of  real  consideration  for 
its  author  from  buying  back,  in  the  free  expres 
sion  of  our  regret  at  misused  time,  the  several 
tedious  hours  we  have  spent  over  its  pages.  It  is 
emphatically  a  dull  work;  and  yet  it  is  a  work  in 
which  many  persons  might  discern  that  arch- 
opponent  of  dulness,  —  a  questionable  moral  tend 
ency.  It  is  almost,  we  think,  a  worthless  book; 
and  yet  it  is  decidedly  a  serious  one.  Its  compo 
sition  has  evidently  been  a  great  matter  for  the 
author. 

This  latter  fact  commands  our  sympathy  and 
tempers  our  severity;  and  yet  at  the  same  time  it 
arouses  a  strong  feeling  of  melancholy.  This  is 
the  age  of  conscientious  poor  books,  as  well  as  of 
unscrupulous  clever  ones;  and  we  are  often  ap 
palled  at  the  quantity  of  ponderous  literary  matter 
which  is  kept  afloat  in  the  market  by  the  simple 
fact  that  those  who  have  set  it  afloat  are  persons 
of  a  well-meaning  sort.  When  a  book  is  both  bad 

"Emily  Chester."  [By  Mrs.  A.  M.  C.  Seemuller.]  Bos 
ton:  1864. 

37 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

and  clever,  the  critic  who  pulls  it  to  pieces  feels 
that  the  author  has  some  consolation  in  the  sweet 
ness  of  his  own  wit  for  the  acerbity  of  that  of 
others.  But  when  a  book  is  destitute  of  even  the 
excellence  of  a  pleasant  style,  it  is  surrounded 
with  an  atmosphere  of  innocence  and  innocuous- 
ness  which  inspires  the  justly  indignant  reviewer 
with  compassion  for  the  hapless  adventurer  who 
has  nothing  to  fall  back  upon. 

We  have  called  "Emily  Chester"  a  dull  book, 
because  the  author  has  chosen  a  subject  and  a 
manner  alike  certain  to  make  it  dull  in  any  but 
the  most  skilful  hands.  She  has  told  a  story  of 
character  in  a  would-be  psychological  mode;  not 
of  every-day  character,  such  as  is  employed  by 
Mr.  Trollope  and  Miss  Austen,  but  of  character 
which  she  must  allow  us  to  term  exceptional.  She 
has  brought  together  three  persons;  for  although 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  book  other  names  occur 
with  some  frequency,  they  remain  nothing  but 
names;  and  during  three  hundred  and  fifty  close 
pages,  we  are  invited  to  watch  the  moral  opera 
tions  of  this  romantic  trio.  What  a  chance  for 
dulness  is  here! 

She  has  linked  her  three  persons  together  by  a 
simple  dramatic  mechanism.  They  are  a  husband, 
a  wife,  and  a  lover.  Emily  Chester,  the  wife,  is  a 
beautiful  and  accomplished  young  woman.  When 
we  have  said  this,  we  have  said  as  much  about  her 
as  we  venture  positively  to  assert;  for  any  further 
acquaintance  with  her  is  the  result  of  mere  guess- 

38 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

work.  Her  person  is  minutely  described.  At 
eighteen  she  has  a  magnificently  developed  figure. 
We  are  told  that  she  has  a  deep  sense  of  the  beau 
tiful;  we  gather  generally  that  she  is  good  yet 
proud,  —  with  a  stern  Romanesque  pride,  —  pas 
sionate  yet  cold,  and  although  very  calm  and 
stately  on  all  occasions,  quite  free  from  petty 
feminine  affectations;  that  she  is  furthermore 
earnestly  devoted  to  music,  and  addicted  to  quot 
ing  from  the  German.  Is  she  clever?  We  know 
not.  The  author  has  evidently  intended  to  make 
her  very  perfect,  but  she  has  only  succeeded  in 
making  her  very  inane.  She  behaves  on  all  occa 
sions  in  a  most  irreproachable,  inhuman  manner; 
as  if  from  the  hour  of  her  birth  she  had  resolved 
to  be  a  martyr,  and  was  grimly  determined  not  to 
be  balked  of  her  purpose.  When  anything  par 
ticularly  disagreeable  happens,  she  becomes  very 
pale  and  calm  and  statuesque.  Although  in  the 
ordinary  affairs  of  life  she  is  sufficiently  cheerful 
and  voluble,  whenever  anything  occurs  a  little  out 
of  the  usual  way  she  seems  to  remember  the  stake 
and  the  torture,  and  straightway  becomes  silent 
and  cold  and  classical.  She  goes  down  into  her 
grave  after  a  life  of  acute  misery  without  ever 
having  "let  on",  as  the  phrase  is,  that  there  has 
been  anything  particular  the  matter  with  her.  In 
view  of  these  facts,  we  presume  that  the  author 
has  aimed  at  the  creation  of  a  perfect  woman,  - 
a  woman  high-toned,  high-spirited,  high-souled, 
high-bred,  high  and  mighty  in  all  respects. 

39 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

Heaven  preserve  us  from  any  more  radical  speci 
mens  of  this  perfection! 

To  wish  to  create  such  a  specimen  was  a  very 
laudable,  but  a  very  perilous  ambition;  to  have 
created  it,  would  have  been  an  admirable  achieve 
ment.  But  the  task  remains  pretty  much  what 
it  was.  Emily  Chester  is  not  a  character;  she  is 
a  mere  shadow;  the  mind's  eye  strives  in  vain  to 
body  her  forth  from  the  fluent  mass  of  talk  in 
which  she  is  embodied.  We  do  not  wish  to  be 
understood  as  attributing  this  fact  of  her  indis 
tinctness  to  the  fact  of  her  general  excellence  and 
nobleness;  good  women,  thank  heaven,  may  be  as 
vividly  realized  as  bad  ones.  We  attribute  it  to 
the  want  of  clearness  in  the  author's  conception, 
to  the  want  of  science  in  her  execution. 

Max  Crampton  and  Frederick  Hastings,  who 
are  both  very  faulty  persons,  are  equally  incom 
plete  and  intangible.  Max  is  an  eccentric  mil- 
lionnaire,  a  mute  adorer  of  Miss  Chester;  mute, 
that  is,  with  regard  to  his  passion,  but  a  great 
talker  and  theorizer  on  things  in  general.  We 
have  a  strong  impression  of  having  met  him  be 
fore.  He  is  the  repetition  of  a  type  that  has  of 
late  years  obtained  great  favor  with  lady  novelists: 
the  ugly,  rich,  middle-aged  lover,  with  stern  brows 
and  white  teeth;  reticent  and  yet  ardent;  indo 
lent  and  yet  muscular,  full  of  satire  and  common- 
sense.  Max  is  partly  a  German,  as  such  men  often 
are,  in  novels.  In  spite  of  these  striking  charac 
teristics,  his  fine  rich  ugliness,  his  sardonic  laugh, 

40 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

his  enormous  mental  strength,  the  fulness  of  his 
devotion  and  of  his  magnanimity,  he  is  anything 
but  a  living,  moving  person.  He  is  essentially  a 
woman's  man;  one  of  those  impossible  heroes, 
whom  lady  novelists  concoct  half  out  of  their  own 
erratic  fancies  and  half  out  of  those  of  other  lady 
novelists.  But  if  Max  is  a  woman's  man,  what  is 
Frederick  Hastings?  He  is  worse;  he  is  almost  a 
man's  woman.  He  is  nothing;  he  is  more  shadowy 
even  than  Emily.  We  are  told  that  he  had  beauty 
and  grace  of  person,  delicacy,  subtlety  of  mind, 
womanly  quickness  of  perception.  But,  like  his 
companions,  he  utterly  fails  to  assert  himself. 

Such  are  the  three  mutually  related  individuals 
with  whom  we  are  brought  into  relation.  We  can 
not  but  suppose  that,  as  we  have  said,  the  author 
intended  them  for  persons  of  exceptional  en 
dowments.  Such  beauty,  such  moral  force  and 
fervor,  as  are  shadowed  forth  in  Emily;  so  sublime 
and  Gothic  an  ugliness,  such  intellectual  depth, 
breadth,  strength,  so  vast  an  intellectual  and 
moral  capacity  generally,  as  we  are  taught  to  as 
sociate  with  Max:  these  traits  are  certainly  not 
vouchsafed  to  the  vulgar  many.  Nor  is  it  given 
to  one  man  out  of  five  thousand,  we  apprehend, 
to  be  so  consummate  a  charmer  as  Frederick 
Hastings. 

But  granting  the  existence  of  these  almost 
unique  persons,  we  recur  to  our  statement  that 
they  are  treated  in  a  psychological  fashion.  We 
use  this  word,  for  want  of  a  better  one,  in  what 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

we  may  call  its  technical  sense.  We  apply  it  to 
the  fact  that  the  author  makes  the  action  of  her 
story  rest,  not  only  exclusively,  but  what  is  more 
to  the  point,  avowedly,  upon  the  temperament, 
nature,  constitution,  instincts,  of  her  characters; 
upon  their  physical  rather  than  upon  their  moral 
sense.  There  is  a  novel  at  present  languidly  cir 
culating  in  our  literature-  "Charles  Auchester" 
—  which  is  generally  spoken  of  by  its  admirers  as 
a  "novel  of  temperament."  "Emily  Chester"  is 
of  the  same  sort;  it  is  an  attempt  to  exalt  the 
physical  sensibilities  into  the  place  of  monitors 
and  directors,  or  at  any  rate  to  endow  them  with 
supreme  force  and  subtlety.  Psychology,  it  may 
be  said,  is  the  observation  of  the  moral  and  intel 
lectual  character.  We  repeat  that  we  use  the 
word  in  what  we  have  called  its  technical  sense, 
the  scrutiny,  in  fiction,  of  motive  generally.  It  is 
very  common  now-a-days  for  young  novelists  to 
build  up  figures  minus  the  soul.  There  are  two 
ways  of  so  eliminating  the  spiritual  principle. 
One  is  by  effectually  diluting  it  in  the  description 
of  outward  objects,  as  is  the  case  with  the  pic 
turesque  school  of  writing;  another  is  by  diluting 
it  in  the  description  of  internal  subjects.  This 
latter  course  has  been  pursued  in  the  volume  be 
fore  us.  In  either  case  the  temperament  is  the 
nearest  approach  we  have  to  a  soul.  Emily  be 
comes  aware  of  Frederick  Hastings's  presence  at 
Mrs.  Dana's  party  by  "a  species  of  animal  mag 
netism."  Many  writers  would  have  said  by  the 

42 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

use  of  her  eyes.  During  the  period  of  her  grief  at 
her  father's  death,  Max  feels  that  he  is  "constitu 
tionally  powerless"  to  help  her.  So  he  does  not 
even  try.  As  she  regains  her  health,  after  her 
marriage,  "her  morbid  sensitiveness  to  outward 
influences"  returns  with  renewed  vigor.  Her  old 
constitutional  repulsion  towards  (sic)  her  husband 
increases  with  fearful  rapidity.  She  tries  in  vain 
to  overcome  it:  "the  battle  with,  and  denial  of, 
instinct  resulted  as  such  conflicts  inevitably 
must."  The  mood  in  which  she  drives  him  from 
her,  in  what  may  not  be  inappropriately  termed 
the  "balcony  scene"  on  the  Lake  of  Como,  arises 
from  her  having  been  "true  to  her  constitutional 
sensitiveness."  Max  recognizes  the  old  friend 
ship  between  his  wife  and  Hastings  to  have  been 
the  "constitutional  harmony  of  two  congenial 
natures."  Emily's  spirit,  on  page  245,  is  bound 
by  "human  law  with  which  its  nature  had  no  cor 
respondence."  We  are  told  on  page  285,  that 
Frederick  Hastings  held  Emily  fascinated  by  his 
"motive  power  over  the  supersensuous  portion  of 
her  being." 

But  it  is  needless  to  multiply  examples.  There 
is  hardly  a  page  in  which  the  author  does  not  in 
sinuate  her  conviction  that,  in  proportion  as  a 
person  is  finely  organized,  in  so  far  is  he  apt  to  be 
the  slave  of  his  instincts,  —  the  subject  of  unac 
countable  attractions  and  repulsions,  loathings 
and  yearnings.  We  do  not  wish  to  use  hard  words; 
perhaps,  indeed,  the  word  which  is  in  our  mind, 

43 


LB 

Mil 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

and  which  will  be  on  the  lips  of  many,  is  in  these 
latter  days  no  longer  a  hard  word;  but  if  "Emily 
Chester"  is  immortal,  it  is  by  the  fact  of  the  above 
false  representation.  It  is  not  in  making  a  woman 
prefer  another  man  to  her  husband,  nor  even  in 
making  her  detest  a  kind  and  virtuous  husband. 
It  is  in  showing  her  to  be  so  disposed  without  an 
assignable  reason;  it  is  in  making  her  irresponsible. 
But  the  absurdity  of  such  a  view  of  human  nature 
lullifies  its  pernicious  tendency.  Beasts  and  idiots 
act  from  their  instincts;  educated  men  and  women, 
even  when  they  most  violate  principle,  act  from 
their  reason,  however  perverted,  and  their  affec 
tions,  however  misplaced. 

We  presume  that  our  author  wishes  us  to  ad 
mire,  or  at  least  to  compassionate,  her  heroine; 
but  we  must  deny  her  the  tribute  of  either  senti 
ment.  It  may  be  claimed  for  her  that  she  was 
ultimately  victorious  over  her  lawless  impulses; 
but  this  claim  we  reject.  Passion  was  indeed  con 
quered  by  duty,  but  life  was  conquered  by  pas 
sion.  The  true  victory  of  mind  would  have  been, 
not  perhaps  in  a  happy,  but  at  least  in  a  peaceful 
life.  Granting  the  possibility  of  Emily's  having 
been  beset  by  these  vague  and  nameless  conflict 
ing  forces,  the  one  course  open  to  her  was  to  con 
quer  a  peace.  Women  who  love  less  wisely  than 
well  engage  our  sympathy  even  while  we  deny 
them  our  approbation;  but  a  woman  who  indulges 
in  a  foolish  passion,  without  even  the  excuse  of 
loving  well,  must  be  curtly  and  sternly  dismissed. 

44 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

At  no  period  of  Emily's  history  could  she  have 
assigned  a  reason  to  herself  (let  alone  her  disabil 
ity  to  make  her  position  clear  to  her  husband) 
for  her  intense  loathing  of  Max  Crampton!  We 
do  not  say  that  she  could  not  have  defended  her 
position;  she  could  not  have  even  indicated  it. 
Nor  could  she  have  given  a  name  to  the  state  of 
her  feelings  with  regard  to  Hastings.  She  admits 
to  herself  that  he  does  not  engage  her  heart;  he 
dominates  merely  "the  supersensuous  portion  of 
her  being."  We  hope  that  this  glittering  gener 
ality  was  not  of  Emily's  own  contrivance.  Sore 
distressed  indeed  must  she  have  been,  if  she  could 
not  have  made  herself  out  a  better  case  than  her 
biographer  has  made  for  her.  If  her  biographer 
had  represented  her  as  loving  Frederick  Hastings, 
as  struggling  with  her  love,  and  finally  reducing 
it  from  a  disorderly  to  an  orderly  passion,  we 
should  have  pledged  her  our  fullest  sympathy  and 
interest.  Having  done  so  well,  we  might  have 
regretted  that  she  should  not  have  done  better, 
and  have  continued  to  adorn  that  fashionable 
society  of  which  she  was  so  brilliant  a  member. 
She  was  in  truth  supremely  handsome;  she  might 
have  lived  for  her  beauty's  sake.  But  others  have 
done  so  much  worse,  that  we  should  have  been 
sorry  to  complain.  As  the  case  stands,  we  com 
plain  bitterly,  not  so  much  of  Emily  as  of  the 
author;  for  we  are  satisfied  that  an  Emily  is  im 
possible.  Even  from  the  author's  point  of  view, 
however,  her  case  is  an  easy  one.  She  had  no 

45 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

hate  to  contend  with,  merely  loathing;  no  love, 
merely  yearning;  no  feelings,  as  far  as  we  can 
make  out,  merely  sensations.  Except  the  loss  of 
her  property,  we  maintain  that  she  has  no  deep 
sorrow  in  life.  She  refuses  Hastings  in  the  season 
of  her  trial.  Good:  she  would  not  marry  a  man 
whom  she  did  not  love,  merely  for  a  subsistence; 
so  far  she  was  an  honest  woman.  But  she  refuses 
him  at  the  cost  of  a  great  agony.  We  do  not  un 
derstand  her  predicament.  It  is  our  belief  that 
there  is  no  serious  middle  state  between  friendship 
and  love.  If  Emily  did  not  love  Hastings,  why 
should  she  have  suffered  so  intensely  in  refusing 
him?  Certainly  not  out  of  sympathy  for  him  dis 
appointed.  We  may  be  told  that  she  did  not  love 
him  in  a  way  to  marry  him:  she  loved  him,  then, 
as  a  mother  or  a  sister.  The  refusal  of  his  hand 
must  have  been,  in  such  a  case,  an  easy  rather 
than  a  difficult  task.  She  accepts  Max  as  irre 
sponsibly  as  she  refuses  Frederick,  —  because 
there  is  a  look  in  his  eyes  of  claiming  her  body 
and  soul,  "through  his  divine  right  of  the 
stronger."  Such  a  look  must  be  either  very 
brutal  or  very  tender.  What  we  know  of  Max 
forbids  us  to  suppose  that  in  his  case  it  was 
tainted  with  the  former  element;  it  must  accord 
ingly  have  expressed  the  ripened  will  to  serve, 
cherish,  and  protect.  Why,  then,  should  it  in 
later  years,  as  Emily  looked  back  upon  it,  have 
filled  her  with  so  grisly  a  horror?  Such  terrors 
are  self-made.  A  woman  who  despises  her  hus- 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

band's  person  may  perhaps,  if  she  is  very  weak 
and  nervous,  grow  to  invest  it  with  numerous  fan 
tastic  analogies.  If,  on  the  contrary,  she  is  as 
admirably  self-poised  as  Mrs.  Crampton,  she  will 
endeavor,  by  the  steady  contemplation  of  his 
magnificent  intellect  and  his  generous  devotion, 
to  discern  the  subtle  halo  (always  discernible  to 
the  eye  of  belief)  which  a  noble  soul  sheds 
through  an  ignoble  body.  Our  author  will  per 
haps  resent  our  insinuation  that  the  unutterable 
loathing  of  Max's  wife  for  him  was  anything  so 
easily  disposed  of  as  a  contempt  for  his  person. 
Such  a  feeling  is  a  very  lawful  one;  it  may  easily 
be  an  impediment  to  a  wife's  happiness;  but 
when  it  is  balanced  by  so  deep  a  conviction  of  her 
partner's  moral  and  intellectual  integrity  as  Mrs. 
Crampton's  own  mental  acuteness  furnished  her, 
it  is  certainly  not  an  insuperable  bar  to  a  career 
of  comfortable  resignation.  When  it  assumes  the 
unnatural  proportions  in  which  it  is  here  exhibited, 
it  conclusively  proves  that  its  subject  is  a  pro 
foundly  vicious  person.  Emily  found  just  that  in 
Hastings  which  she  missed  in  her  husband.  If 
the  absence  of  this  quality  in  Max  was  sufficient 
to  unfit  him  for  her  true  love,  why  should  not 
its  presence  have  been  potent  enough  to  insure 
her  heart  to  Frederick?  We  doubt  very  much 
whether  she  had  a  heart;  we  mistrust  those 
hearts  which  are  known  only  by  their  ineffable 
emptiness  and  woe.  But  taking  her  biographer's 
word  for  it  that  she  had,  the  above  little  piece  of 

47 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

logic  ought,  we  think,  effectually  to  confound  it. 
Heart-histories,  as  they  are  called,  have  generally 
been  considered  a  very  weary  and  unprofitable 
species  of  fiction;  but  we  infinitely  prefer  the  old- 
fashioned  love-stories,  in  which  no  love  but  heart- 
love  was  recognized,  to  these  modern  teachings  of 
a  vagrant  passion  which  has  neither  a  name  nor 
a  habitation.  We  are  not  particularly  fond  of 
any  kind  of  sentimentality;  but  Heaven  defend 
us  from  the  sentimentality  which  soars  above  all 
our  old  superstitions,  and  allies  itself  with  any 
thing  so  rational  as  a  theory. 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 


V 

"Jtfoods" 


T  TNDER  the  above  title,  Miss  Alcott  has  given 
^  us  her  version  of  the  old  story  of  the  husband, 
the  wife,  and  the  lover.  This  story  has  been  told 
so  often  that  an  author's  only  pretext  for  telling 
it  again  is  his  consciousness  of  an  ability  to  make 
it  either  more  entertaining  or  more  instructive; 
to  invest  it  with  incidents  more  dramatic,  or  with 
a  more  pointed  moral.  Its  interest  has  already 
been  carried  to  the  furthest'limits,  both  of  tragedy 
and  comedy,  by  a  number  of  practised  French 
writers:  under  this  head,  therefore,  competition 
would  be  superfluous.  Has  Miss  Alcott  proposed 
to  herself  to  give  her  story  a  philosophical  bear 
ing?  We  can  hardly  suppose  it. 

We  have  seen  it  asserted  that  her  book  claims 
to  deal  with  the  "doctrine  of  affinities."  What 
the  doctrine  of  affinities  is,  we  do  not  exactly 
know;  but  we  are  inclined  to  think  that  our  author 
has  been  somewhat  maligned.  Her  book  is,  to 
our  perception,  innocent  of  any  doctrine  whatever. 

The  heroine  of  "Moods"  is  a  fitful,  wayward, 
and  withal  most  amiable  young  person,  named 
Sylvia.  We  regret  to  say  that  Miss  Alcott  takes 

"Moods.'*     By  Louisa  M.  Alcott.     Boston:  1865. 
49 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

her  up  in  her  childhood.  We  are  utterly  weary  of 
stories  about  precocious  little  girls.  In  the  first 
place,  they  are  in  themselves  disagreeable  and 
unprofitable  objects  of  study;  and  in  the  second, 
they  are  always  the  precursors  of  a  not  less  un 
profitable  middle-aged  lover.  We  admit  that, 
even  to  the  middle-aged,  Sylvia  must  have  been 
a  most  engaging  little  person.  One  of  her  means 
of  fascination  is  to  disguise  herself  as  a  boy  and 
work  in  the  garden  with  a  hoe  and  wheelbarrow; 
under  which  circumstances  she  is  clandestinely 
watched  by  one  of  the  heroes,  who  then  and  there 
falls  in  love  with  her.  Then  she  goes  off  on  a 
camping-out  expedition  of  a  week's  duration,  in 
company  with  three  gentlemen,  with  no  super 
fluous  luggage,  as  far  as  we  can  ascertain,  but  a 
cockle-shell  stuck  "pilgrim-wise"  in  her  hat.  It 
is  hard  to  say  whether  the  impropriety  of  this 
proceeding  is  the  greater  or  the  less  from  the  fact 
of  her  extreme  youth.  This  fact  is  at  any  rate 
kindly  overlooked  by  two  of  her  companions,  who 
become  desperately  enamored  of  her  before  the 
week  is  out.  These  two  gentlemen  are  Miss 
Alcott's  heroes.  One  of  them,  Mr.  Geoffrey  Moor, 
is  unobjectionable  enough;  we  shall  have  some 
thing  to  say  of  him  hereafter:  but  the  other,  Mr. 
Adam  Warwick,  is  one  of  our  oldest  and  most  in 
veterate  foes.  He  is  the  inevitable  cavaliere  ser- 
vente  of  the  precocious  little  girl;  the  laconical, 
satirical,  dogmatical  lover,  of  about  thirty-five, 
with  the  "brown  mane",  the  "quiet  smile",  the 

5° 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

" masterful  soul",  and  the  "commanding  eye." 
Do  not  all  novel-readers  remember  a  figure,  a 
hundred  figures,  analogous  to  this?  Can  they 
not,  one  of  his  properties  being  given,  —  the 
"quiet  smile"  for  instance,  —  reconstruct  the 
whole  monstrous  shape?  When  the  "quiet  smile" 
is  suggested,  we  know  what  is  coming:  we  foresee 
the  cynical  bachelor  or  widower,  the  amateur  of 
human  nature,  "Full  of  strange  oaths,  and  bearded 
like  the  pard",  who  has  travelled  all  over  the  world, 
lives  on  a  mysterious  patrimony,  and  spends  his 
time  in  breaking  the  hearts  and  the  wills  of  de 
mure  little  school-girls,  who  answer  him  with 
"Yes,  sir",  and  "No,  sir." 

Mr.  Warwick  is  plainly  a  great  favorite  with 
the  author.  She  has  for  him  that  affection  which 
writers  entertain,  not  for  those  figures  whom  they 
have  well  known,  but  for  such  as  they  have  much 
pondered.  Miss  Alcott  has  probably  mused  upon 
Warwick  so  long  and  so  lovingly  that  she  has  lost 
all  sense  of  his  proportions.  There  is  a  most  dis 
couraging  good-will  in  the  manner  in  which  lady 
novelists  elaborate  their  impossible  heroes.  There 
are,  thank  Heaven,  no  such  men  at  large  in  society. 
We  speak  thus  devoutly,  not  because  Warwick  is 
a  vicious  person,  —  on  the  contrary,  he  exhibits 
the  sternest  integrity;  but  because,  apparently  as 
a  natural  result  of  being  thoroughly  conscientious, 
he  is  essentially  disagreeable.  Women  appear  to 
delight  in  the  conception  of  men  who  shall  be  in 
supportable  to  men.  Warwick  is  intended  to  be 

51 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

a  profoundly  serious  person.  A  species  of  pro 
logue  is  prefixed  to  the  tale,  in  which  we  are 
initiated  into  his  passion  for  one  Ottila,  a  beauti 
ful  Cuban  lady.  This  chapter  is  a  literary  curios 
ity.  The  relations  of  the  two  lovers  are  illustrated 
by  means  of  a  dialogue  between  them.  Consider 
ing  how  bad  this  dialogue  is,  it  is  really  very 
good.  We  mean  that,  considering  what  nonsense 
the  lovers  are  made  to  talk,  their  conversation  is 
quite  dramatic.  We  are  not  certain  of  the  extent 
to  which  the  author  sympathizes  with  her  hero; 
but  we  are  pretty  sure  that  she  has  a  secret 
"Bravo"  in  store  for  him  upon  his  exit.  He  talks 
to  his  mistress  as  no  sane  man  ever  talked  to  a 
woman.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  he  talks 
like  a  brute.  Ottila's  great  crime  has  been,  that, 
after  three  months'  wooing,  he  has  not  found  her 
so  excellent  a  person  as  he  at  first  supposed  her 
to  be.  This  is  a  specimen  of  his  language:  li  You 
allured  my  eye  with  loveliness,  my  ear  with  music; 
piqued  curiosity,  pampered  pride,  and  subdued 
will  by  flatteries  subtly  administered.  Beginning 
afar  off,  you  let  all  influences  do  their  work,  till 
the  moment  came  for  the  effective  stroke.  Then 
you  made  a  crowning  sacrifice  of  maiden  modesty, 
and  owned  you  loved  me."  What  return  does  she 
get  for  the  sacrifice,  if  sacrifice  it  was?  To  have 
her  favors  thrown  back  in  her  teeth  on  the  day 
that  her  lover  determines  to  jilt  her.  To  jilt  a 
woman  in  an  underhand  fashion  is  bad  enough; 
but  to  break  your  word  to  her  and  at  the  same 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

time  load  her  with  outrage,  to  call  her  evil  names 
because  she  is  so  provokingly  in  the  right,  to  add 
the  foulest  insult  to  the  bitterest  injury,  —  these 
things  may  be  worthy  of  a  dissolute  adventurer, 
but  they  are  certainly  not  worthy  of  a  model  hero. 
Warwick  tells  Ottila  that  he  is  "a  man  untamed 
by  any  law  but  that  of  [his]  own  will."  He  is 
further  described  as  "violently  virtuous,  a  mas 
terful  soul,  bent  on  living  out  his  aspirations  at 
any  cost";  and  as  possessed  of  "great  nobility  of 
character,  great  audacity  of  mind";  as  being  "too 
fierce  an  iconoclast  to  suit  the  old  party,  too  in 
dividual  a  reformer  to  join  the  new",  and  "a 
grand  man  in  the  rough,  an  excellent  tonic  for 
those  who  have  courage  to  try  him."  Truly,  for 
her  courage  in  trying  him,  poor  Ottila  is  generously 
rewarded.  His  attitude  towards  her  may  be  re 
duced  to  this:  —  Three  months  ago,  I  fell  in  love 
with  your  beauty,  your  grace,  your  wit.  I  took 
them  as  a  promise  of  a  moral  elevation  which  I 
now  find  you  do  not  possess.  And  yet,  the  deust 
take  it,  I  am  engaged  to  you.  Ergo,  you  are 
false,  immodest,  and  lacking  in  the  "moral  senti 
ment",  and  I  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  you. 
I  may  be  a  sneak,  a  coward,  a  brute;  but  at  all 
events,  I  am  untamed  by  any  law,  etc. 

Before  the  picnic  above  mentioned  is  over, 
Warwick  and  Moor  have,  unknown  to  each  other, 
both  lost  their  hearts  to  Sylvia.  Warwick  may 
not  declare  himself,  inasmuch  as,  to  do  him  jus 
tice,  he  considers  himself  bound  by  word  to  the 

53 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

unfortunate  beauty  of  the  Havana.  But  Moor, 
who  is  free  to  do  as  he  pleases,  forthwith  offers 
himself.  He  is  refused,  the  young  girl  having  a 
preference  for  Warwick.  But  while  she  is  wait 
ing  for  Warwick's  declaration,  his  flirtation  with 
Ottila  comes  to  her  knowledge.  She  recalls  Moor, 
marries  him,  and  goes  to  spend  her  honeymoon 
among  the  White  Mountains.  Here  Warwick 
turns  up.  He  has  been  absent  in  Cuba,  whether 
taking  back  his  rude  speeches  to  Ottila,  or  fol 
lowing  them  up  with  more  of  the  same  sort,  we 
are  not  informed.  He  is  accordingly  ignorant  of 
the  change  in  his  mistress's  circumstances.  He 
finds  her  alone  on  the  mountain-side,  and  straight 
way  unburdens  his  heart.  Here  ensues  a  very 
pretty  scene,  prettily  told.  On  learning  the  sad 
truth,  Warwick  takes  himself  off,  over  the  crest 
of  the  hill,  looking  very  tall  and  grand  against 
the  sun,  and  leaving  his  mistress  alone  in  the 
shadow.  In  the  shadow  she  passes  the  rest  of 
her  brief  existence.  She  might  have  lived  along 
happily  enough,  we  conceive,  masquerading  with 
her  gentle  husband  in  the  fashion  of  old  days,  if 
Warwick  had  not  come  back,  and  proffered  a 
visit,  —  his  one  natural  and  his  one  naughty  act. 
Of  course  it  is  all  up  with  Sylvia.  An  honest  man 
in  Warwick's  position  would  immediately  have 
withdrawn,  on  seeing  that  his  presence  only 
served  seriously  to  alienate  his  mistress  from  her 
husband.  A  dishonest  man  would  have  remained 
and  made  love  to  his  friend's  wife. 

54 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

Miss  Alcott  tries  to  persuade  us  that  her  hero 
does  neither;  but  we  maintain  that  he  adopts  the 
latter  course,  and,  what  is  worse,  does  it  like  an 
arrant  hypocrite.  He  proceeds  to  lay  down  the 
law  of  matrimonial  duty  to  Sylvia  in  a  manner 
which,  in  our  opinion,  would  warrant  her  in  call 
ing  in  her  husband  to  turn  him  out  of  the  house. 
He  declares,  indeed,  that  he  designs  no  "French 
sentiment  nor  sin",  whatever  these  may  be;  but 
he  exerts  the  utmost  power  of  his  "masterful 
soul"  to  bully  her  into  a  protest  against  her  un 
natural  union.  No  man  with  any  sense  of  de 
cency,  no  man  of  the  slightest  common-sense, 
would  presume  to  dogmatize  in  this  conceited 
fashion  upon  a  matter  with  which  he  has  not  the 
least  concern.  Miss  Alcott  would  tell  us,  we  pre 
sume,  that  it  is  not  as  a  lover,  but  as  a  friend,  that 
Warwick  offers  the  advice  here  put  into  his  mouth. 
Family  friends,  when  they  know  what  they  are 
about,  are  only  too  glad  to  shirk  the  responsibility 
of  an  opinion  in  matrimonial  differences.  When  a 
man  beats,  starves,  or  otherwise  misuses  his  wife, 
any  judicious  acquaintance  will  take  the  responsi 
bility  of  advising  the  poor  woman  to  seek  legal 
redress;  and  he  need  not,  to  use  Miss  Alcott's 
own  preposition,  have  an  affinity  "for"  her,  to  do 
so.  But  it  is  inconceivable  that  a  wise  and  vir 
tuous  gentleman  should  deliberately  persuade  two 
dear  friends  —  dear  equally  to  himself  and  to 
each  other  —  to  pick  imperceptible  flaws  in  a 
relation  whose  inviolability  is  the  great  interest 

55 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

of  their  lives,  and  which,  from  the  picture  pre 
sented  to  us,  is  certainly  one  of  exceptional  com 
fort  and  harmony. 

In  all  this  matter  it  strikes  us  that  Sylvia's 
husband  is  the  only  one  to  be  pitied.  His  wife, 
while  in  a  somnambulistic  state,  confesses  the 
secret  of  her  illicit  affection.  Moor  is,  of  course, 
bitterly  outraged,  and  his  anger  is  well  described. 
Sylvia  pities  him  intensely,  but  insists  with  sweet 
inflexibility  that  she  cannot  continue  to  be  his 
wife,  and  dismisses  him  to  Europe,  with  a  most 
audacious  speech  about  the  beautiful  eternity 
and  the  immortality  of  love.  Moor,  who  for  a 
moment  has  evinced  a  gleam  of  natural  passion, 
which  does  something  towards  redeeming  from 
ludicrous  unreality  the  united  efforts  of  the  trio 
before  us,  soon  recovers  himself,  and  submits  to 
his  fate  precisely  like  a  morbidly  conscientious 
young  girl  who  is  engaged  in  the  formation  of  her 
character  under  the  direction  of  her  clergyman. 
From  this  point  accordingly  the  story  becomes 
more  and  more  unnatural,  although,  we  cheer 
fully  add,  it  becomes  considerably  more  dramatic, 
and  is  much  better  told.  All  this  portion  is,  in 
fact,  very  pretty;  indeed,  if  it  were  not  so  essen 
tially  false,  we  should  call  it  very  fine.  As  it  is, 
we  can  only  use  the  expression  in  its  ironical 
sense.  Moor  consents  to  sacrifice  himself  to  the 
beautiful  ethical  abstraction  which  his  wife  and 
her  lover  have  concocted  between  them.  He  will 
go  to  Europe  and  await  the  dawning  of  some  new 

56 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

abstraction,  under  whose  starry  influence  he  may 
return.  When  he  does  return,  it  will  not  be,  we 
may  be  sure,  to  give  his  wife  the  thorough  rating 
she  deserves. 

At  the  eleventh  hour,  when  the  vessel  is  about 
to  start,  Warwick  turns  up,  and  thrusts  himself, 
as  a  travelling  companion,  upon  the  man  he  has 
outraged.  As  Warwick  was  destined  to  die  a 
violent  death,  we  think  Miss  Alcott  might  have 
here  appropriately  closed  her  book  by  making 
Moor  pitch  Adam  into  the  water  for  his  imperti 
nence.  But  as  usual,  Warwick  has  his  own  way. 

During  their  absence,  Sylvia  sinks  into  a  rapid 
decline.  After  a  certain  interval  they  start  home 
ward.  But  their  ship  is  wrecked;  Warwick  is  lost 
in  trying  to  save  Moor's  life;  and  Moor  reaches 
home  alone.  Sylvia  then  proceeds  to  put  him 
and  every  one  else  in  the  wrong  by  dying  the 
death  of  the  righteous. 

The  two  most  striking  facts  with  regard  to 
"Moods"  are  the  author's  ignorance  of  human 
nature,  and  her  self-confidence  in  spite  of  this 
ignorance.  Miss  Alcott  doubtless  knows  men  and 
women  well  enough  to  deal  successfully  with 
their  every-day  virtues  and  temptations,  but  not 
well  enough  to  handle  great  dramatic  passions. 
The  consequence  is,  that  her  play  is  not  a  real 
play,  nor  her  actors  real  actors. 

But  beside  these  facts  are  others,  less  salient 
perhaps,  upon  which  it  is  pleasanter  to  touch. 
Chief  among  these  is  the  author's  decided  clever- 

57 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

ness;  that  quality  to  which  we  owe  it  that,  in 
spite  of  the  absurdities  of  the  action,  the  last  half 
of  her  book  is  replete  with  beauty  and  vigor. 
What  shall  we  call  this  quality?  Imagination 
does  not  seem  to  us  too  grand  a  word.  For, 
in  the  absence  of  knowledge,  our  authoress  has 
derived  her  figures,  as  the  German  derived  his 
camel,  from  the  depths  of  her  moral  consciousness. 
If  they  are  on  this  account  the  less  real,  they  are 
also  on  this  account  the  more  unmistakably  in 
stinct  with  a  certain  beauty  and  grace.  If  Miss 
Alcott's  experience  of  human  nature  has  been  small, 
as  we  should  suppose,  her  admiration  for  it  is  never 
theless  great.  Putting  aside  Adam's  treatment 
of  Ottila,  she  sympathizes  throughout  her  book 
with  none  but  great  things.  She  has  the  rare 
merit,  accordingly,  of  being  very  seldom  puerile. 
For  inanimate  nature,  too,  she  has  a  genuine  love, 
together  with  a  very  pretty  way  of  describing  it. 
With  these  qualities  there  is  no  reason  why  Miss 
Alcott  should  not  write  a  very  good  novel,  pro 
vided  she  will  be  satisfied  to  describe  only  that 
which  she  has  seen.  When  such  a  novel  comes,  as 
we  doubt  not  it  eventually  will,  we  shall  be  among 
the  first  to  welcome  it.  With  the  exception  of  two 
or  three  celebrated  names,  we  know  not,  indeed, 
to  whom,  in  this  country,  unless  to  Miss  Alcott, 
we  are  to  look  for  a  novel  above  the  average. 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 


VI 

The  J^oble  School  of  Fiction 

"V|R.  HENRY  KINGSLEY  may  be  fairly  de- 
•*--•-  scribed  as  a  reduced  copy  of  his  brother. 
He  lacks,  indeed,  many  of  his  brother's  gifts; 
especially  that  tone  of  authority  which  the 
Rev.  Charles  Kingsley  derives  from  his  connection 
with  the  Church  and  the  University.  He  cher 
ishes,  publicly,  at  least,  no  original  theory  of  his 
tory.  He  has  less  talent,  to  begin  with;  and  less 
knowledge,  to  end  with.  But  he  is  nevertheless, 
as  perhaps  indeed  for  these  very  reasons,  a  capital 
example  of  the  pure  Kingsley  spirit.  In  him  we 
see  the  famous  muscular  system  of  morality  pre 
sented  in  its  simplest  form,  disengaged  from  the 
factitious  graces  of  scholarship.  Our  feeling  for 
Mr.  Henry  Kingsley,  for  which  under  other  cir 
cumstances  we  could  not  positively  vouch,  is 
almost  kindled  into  gratitude  when  we  consider 
the  good  service  he  has  rendered  the  rising  gen 
eration  in  divesting  the  name  of  Kingsley  of  its 
terror.  As  long  as  Mr.  Charles  Kingsley  wrote 
about  the  age  of  Elizabeth  and  the  age  of  Hypa- 
tia,  and  exercised  his  powerful  and  perverse 

"The  Hilly ars  and  the  Burtons:  a  Story  of  Two  Families." 
By  Henry  Kingsley.     Boston:  1865. 

59 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

imagination  upon  the  Greeks  of  the  fifth  century 
and  the  Englishmen  of  the  sixteenth,  those  young 
persons  who  possessed  only  the  common-school 
notions  of  the  rise  of  Protestantism  and  the  fall 
of  Paganism  had  nothing  to  depend  upon  during 
their  slow  convalescence  from  the  Kingsley  fever 
-  which  we  take  to  be  a  malady  natural  to  youth, 
like  the  measles  or  the  scarlatina,  leaving  the  sub 
ject  much  stronger  and  sounder  —  but  a  vague 
uncomfortable  sensation  of  the  one-sidedness  of 
their  teacher.  Those  persons,  on  the  other  hand, 
who  had  inquired  for  themselves  into  the  manners 
of  the  Elizabethan  era,  discovered,  what  they  had 
all  along  expected,  that  both  Mr.  Kingsley 's  Eng 
lishmen  and  his  Spaniards,  although  in  a  certain 
way  wonderfully  life-like,  were  yet  not  the  char 
acters  of  history;  that  these  persons  were  occupied 
with  far  other  thoughts  than  that  of  posing  for 
the  confusion  of  the  degenerate  Anglo-Saxons  of 
the  present  day;  that  they  were  infinitely  brutal, 
indeed,  and  sentimental  in  their  own  fashion;  but 
that  this  fashion  was  very  unlike  Mr.  Kingsley 's. 
There  is  a  way  of  writing  history  which  on  gen 
eral  grounds  impugns  the  writer's  fidelity;  that  is, 
studying  it  with  a  prejudice  either  in  favor  of 
human  nature  or  against  it.  This  is  the  method 
selected  by  Mr.  Kingsley  and  Mr.  Carlyle.  Mr. 
Kingsley 's  prejudice  is,  on  the  whole,  in  favor  of 
human  nature;  while  Mr.  Carlyle's  is  against  it. 
It  is  astonishing,  however,  how  nearly  the  two 
writers  coincide  in  their  conclusions.  When  in 

60 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

"Two  Years  Ago"  Mr.  Charles  Kingsley  took  up 
the  men  and  women  about  us,  he  inflicted  upon 
his  cause  an  injury  which  his  brother's  novels 
have  only  served  to  aggravate.  He  made  a  very 
thrilling  story;  a  story  which  we  would  advise  all 
young  persons  to  read,  as  they  take  a  cold  bath 
in  winter  time,  for  the  sake  of  the  "reaction"; 
but  he  forfeited  his  old  claim  to  being  considered 
a  teacher.  He  gave  us  the  old  giants  and  the  old 
cravens;  but  giants  and  cravens  were  found  to  be 
insufficient  to  the  demands  of  the  age.  The  age 
has  stronger  muscles  and  weaker  nerves  than 
Mr.  Kingsley  supposes. 

The  author  of  the  volume  before  us  tells  us  in 
a  brief  preface  that  his  object  has  been  to  paint 
the  conflict  between  love  and  duty  in  the  breast 
of  an  uneducated  girl,  who,  after  a  year  and  a 
half  at  boarding-school,  "might  have  developed 
into  a  very  noble  lady."  He  adds  that  this  ques 
tion  of  the  claims  of  duty  as  opposed  to  love  is 
one  which,  "thanks  to  the  nobleness  of  our 
women",  is  being  continually  put  before  us.  To 
what  women  the  possessive  pronoun  refers  is  left 
to  conjecture:  but  judging  from  the  fact  that 
whenever  the  Messrs.  Kingsley  speak  of  the 
human  race  in  general  they  mean  their  own  coun 
trymen  in  particular,  we  may  safely  apply.it  to 
the  daughters  of  England.  But  however  this 
may  be,  the  question  in  point  is  one  which,  in 
spite  of  Mr.  Kingsley's  preface,  and  thanks  to  his 
incompetency  to  tell  a  straight  story,  is  not  put 

61 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

before  us  here.  We  are  treated  to  nothing  so 
beautiful,  so  simple,  or  so  interesting.  Does  the 
author  really  believe  that  any  such  severe  inten 
tion  is  discernible  among  his  chaotic,  inartistic 
touches?  We  can  hardly  think  that  he  does;  and 
yet,  if  he  does  not,  his  preface  is  inconceivably 
impudent.  It  is  time  that  this  fashion  were  done 
away  with,  of  tacking  a  subject  upon  your  story 
on  the  eve  of  publication.  As  long  as  Mr.  Kings- 
ley's  book  has  a  subject,  what  matters  it  whether 
it  be  outside  of  the  story  or  inside?  The  story  is 
composed  on  the  plan  of  three-fourths  of  the 
modern  popular  novels.  The  author  leaps  astride 
of  a  half-broken  fancy,  starts  off  at  a  brisk  trot 
(we  are  all  familiar  with  the  cheerful  energetic 
colloquy  or  description  with  which  these  works 
open),  and  trusts  to  Providence  for  the  rest.  His 
main  dependence  is  his  command  of  that  expe 
dient  which  is  known  in  street  parlance  as  "col 
lecting  a  crowd."  He  overawes  the  reader  by  the 
force  of  numbers;  and  in  this  way  he  is  never 
caught  solus  upon  the  stage;  for  to  be  left  alone 
with  his  audience,  or  even  to  be  forced  into  a  pro 
longed  tete-d-tete  with  one  of  his  characters,  is  the 
giant  terror  of  the  second-rate  novelist.  Another 
unfailing  resource  of  Mr.  Henry  Kingsley  is  his 
intimate  acquaintance  with  Australian  life.  This 
fact  is  evidently  in  his  opinion,  by  itself,  almost  a 
sufficient  outfit  for  a  novelist.  It  is  one  of  those 
rudimentary  truths  which  cannot  be  too  often 
repeated,  that  to  write  a  novel  it  is  not  necessary 

62 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

to  have  been  a  traveller,  an  adventurer,  a  sight 
seer;  it  is  simply  necessary  to  be  an  artist.  Mr. 
Kingsley's  descriptions  of  Australia  are  very 
pretty;  but  they  are  not  half  so  good  as  those  of 
Mr.  Charles  Reade,  who,  as  far  as  we  know,  has 
never  visited  the  country.  We  mean  that  they 
do  not  give  the  reader  that  vivid  impression  of  a 
particular  place  which  the  genius  of  Mr.  Reade 
contrives  to  produce.  Mr.  Reade  went  to  Aus 
tralia  —  that  is,  his  imagination  went  —  on  pur 
pose  to  compose  certain  chapters  in  "Never  too 
Late  to  Mend."  Mr.  Kingsley  went  in  the  flesh; 
but  Mr.  Kingsley  in  the  flesh  is  not  equal  to  Mr. 
Reade  in  the  spirit. 

The  main  object  of  the  novels  of  Mr.  Charles 
Kingsley  and  his  brother  has  seemed  to  us  to  be 
to  give  a  strong  impression  of  what  they  would 
call  "human  nobleness."  Human  nobleness, 
when  we  come  across  it  in  life,  is  a  very  fine 
thing;  but  it  quite  loses  its  flavor  when  it  is  made 
so  cheap  as  it  is  made  in  these  works.  It  is  em 
phatically  an  occasional  quality;  it  is  not,  and, 
with  all  due  respect  for  the  stalwart  Englishmen 
of  Queen  Elizabeth's  time  and  eke  of  Queen  Vic 
toria's,  it  never  was  the  prime  element  of  human 
life,  nor  were  its  headquarters  at  any  time  on  the 
island  of  Great  Britain.  By  saying  it  is  an  occa 
sional  quality,  we  simply  mean  that  it  is  a  great 
one,  and  is  therefore  manifested  in  great  and 
exceptional  moments.  In  the  ordinary  course  of 
life  it  dees  not  come  into  play;  it  is  sufficiently 

63 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

represented  by  courage,  modesty,  industry.  Let 
the  novelist  give  us  these  virtues  for  what  they 
are,  and  not  for  what  no  true  lover  of  human 
nature  would  have  them  pretend  to  be,  or  else 
let  him  devise  sublime  opportunities,  situations 
which  really  match  the  latent  nobleness  of  the 
human  soul.  We  can  all  of  us  take  the  outside 
view  of  magnanimity;  it  belongs  to  the  poet  to 
take  the  inside  one.  It  seems  to  us  that  the 
sturdy  and  virtuous  Burtons  in  the  present  tale 
have  but  a  narrow  scale  of  emotions.  Mr.  Kings- 
ley  would  apparently  have  us  look  upon  them  all 
as  heroes,  which,  with  the  best  will  in  the  world, 
we  cannot  succeed  in  doing.  A  hero  is  but  a 
species  of  genius,  a  genius  pro  fempore.  The 
Burtons  are  essentially  commonplace.  The  best 
that  can  be  said  of  them  is  that  they  had  a  good 
notion  of  their  duty.  It  is  here,  as  it  seems  to  us, 
that  praise  should  begin,  and  not,  as  Mr.  Kingsley 
would  have  us  think,  that  it  should  be  content  to 
end.  The  notion  of  duty  is  an  excellent  one  to 
start  with,  but  it  is  a  poor  thing  to  spend  one's 
life  in  trying  to  compass.  A  life  so  spent,  at  any 
rate,  is  not  a  fit  subject  for  an  epic  novel.  The 
Burtons  had  none  but  the  minor  virtues  —  hon 
esty,  energy,  and  a  strong  family  feeling.  Let  us 
do  all  justice  to  these  excellent  qualities,  but  let 
us  not  shame  them  by  for  ever  speaking  of  them 
with  our  hats  off,  and  a  "so  help  me  God!"  The 
only  hero  in  Mr.  Kingsley 's  book  is,  to  our  per 
ception,  the  villain,  Sir  George  Hillyar.  He  has 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

a  spark  of  inspiration;  he  is  ridden  by  an  evil 
genius;  he  has  a  spirit  of  his  own.  The  others,  the 
good  persons,  the  gentlemen  and  ladies,  whether 
developed  by  "a  year  and  a  half  at  boarding- 
school",  or  still  in  the  rough,  have  nothing  but 
the  old  Kingsleian  air  noble.  We  are  informed 
that  they  have  "great  souls",  which  on  small 
provocation  rush  into  their  eyes  and  into  the 
grasp  of  their  hands;  and  they  are  for  ever  ad 
dressing  each  other  as  "old  boy"  and  "old  girl." 
"Is  this  ambition?"  Has  the  language  of  friend 
ship  and  of  love  no  finer  terms  than  these?  Those 
who  use  them,  we  are  reminded,  are  gentlemen  in 
the  rough.  There  is,  in  our  opinion,  no  such 
thing  as  a  gentleman  in  the  rough.  A  gentleman 
is  born  of  his  polish. 

A  great  French  critic  characterized  Mr.  Carlyle 
in  a  sentence  which  we  are  confident  he  did  not 
keep  for  what  we  have  called  the  noble  school  of 
fiction,  the  muscular  system  of  morals,  only  be 
cause  its  founder  was  unknown  to  him.  Carlyle, 
said  M.  Taine,  "would  limit  the  human  heart  to 
the  English  sentiment  of  respect."  It  seems  to 
us  that  these  words  admirably  sum  up  Kings- 
leyism,  the  morality  which  Mr.  Charles  Kingsley 
preaches  in  his  sermons,  teaches  in  his  wondrous 
lectures  on  history,  and  dramatizes  in  his  novels, 
and  of  which  his  brother  is  a  more  worldly  and 
popular  representative.  There  is  that  in  Mr. 
Charles  Kingsley's  tone  which  implies  a  convic 
tion  that  when  he  has  served  up  human  nature  in 

65 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

the  way  described  by  M.  Taine,  he  has  finally 
disposed  of  it.  He  has  held  up  the  English  spirit 
to  the  imitation  of  the  world.  He  has,  indeed, 
held  it  up  by  the  force  of  his  great  talents  to  the 
contemplation  of  a  large  number  of  spectators, 
and  of  certain  admirable  properties  of  this  spirit 
he  will  long  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  graphic 
exponents.  But  he  has  shown,  together  with  a 
great  deal  to  admire,  a  great  deal  to  reprove;  and 
it  is  his  damning  fault  (the  expression  is  not  too 
strong)  that  equally  with  its  merits  he  would  im 
pose  its  defects  wholesale  upon  the  rest  of  man 
kind.  But  there  is  in  the  human  heart  a  sentiment 
higher  than  that  of  duty  —  the  sentiment  of  free 
dom;  and  in  the  human  imagination  a  force  which 
respects  nothing  but  what  is  divine.  In  the  mus 
cular  faith  there  is  very  little  of  the  divine,  because 
there  is  very  little  that  is  spiritual.  For  the 
same  reason  there  is  nothing  but  a  spurious  noble 
ness.  Who  would  rest  content  with  this  as  the 
last  word  of  religious  sagacity:  that  the  ideal  for 
human  endeavor  is  the  English  gentleman  ?  - 
unless,  indeed,  it  be  the  English  gentleman  him 
self.  To  this  do  Mr.  Charles  Kingsley's  teachings 
amount.  There  is,  nevertheless,  in  his  novels, 
and  in  his  brother's  as  well,  a  great  deal  which  we 
might  call  beautiful,  if  it  were  not  that  this  word 
always  suggests  something  that  is  true;  a  great 
deal  which  we  must/therefore,  be  content  to  call 
pretty.  Professor  Kingsley  would  probably  be  by 
no  means  satisfied  to  have  us  call  "Westward, 

66 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

Ho!"  a  pretty  story;  but  it  is  pretty,  nevertheless; 
it  is,  in  fact,  quite  charming.  It  is  written  in  a 
style  which  the  author  would  himself  call  "noble 
English",  and  it  contains  many  lovely  descrip 
tions  of  South  America,  which  he  has  apparently 
the  advantage  of  not  having  visited.  How  a  real 
South  America  would  clash  with  his  unreal  Eng 
land!  Mr.  Henry  Kingsley  will  never  do  any 
thing  so  good;  but  if  he  will  forget  a  vast  number 
of  things,  and  remember  as  many  more,  he  may 
write  a  readable  story  yet.  Let  him  forget,  in  the 
first  place,  that  he  is  an  English  gentleman,  and 
remember  that  he  is  a  novelist.  Let  him  forget 
(always  in  the  interest  of  art)  the  eternal  respon 
sibility  of  the  rich  to  the  poor,  which  in  the  volume 
before  us  has  spoiled  two  good  things.  And  let 
him  talk  a  little  less  about  nobleness,  and  inquire 
a  little  more  closely  into  its  real  essence.  We  do 
not  desire  hereby  to  arrest  the  possible  flights  of 
his  imagination.  On  the  contrary,  we  are  sure 
that  if  he  will  woo  human  nature  with  the  proper 
assiduity,  he  will  draw  from  her  many  a  sweet 
confession,  infinitely  more  creditable  than  any 
thing  he  could  have  fancied.  Only  let  him  not 
consider  it  necessary  to  his  success  to  salute  her 
invariably  as  "old  girl." 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 


VII 

^Mackenzie 

TTTE  have  long  entertained  for  Mr.  Trollope  a 
partiality  of  which  we  have  yet  been  some 
what  ashamed.  Perhaps,  indeed,  we  do  wrong  to 
say  that  we  have  entertained  it.  It  has  rather 
usurped  our  hospitality,  and  has  resisted  several 
attempts  at  forcible  expulsion.  If  it  remains, 
therefore,  in  however  diminished  vigor,  we  con 
fess  that  it  will  be  through  our  weakness. 

Miss  Mackenzie  is  a  worthy  gentlewoman,  who, 
coming  at  the  age  of  thirty-six  into  a  comfortable 
little  fortune,  retires  to  enjoy  it  at  a  quiet  watering- 
place,  where,  in  the  course  of  time,  she  is  beset  by 
a  brace  of  mercenary  suitors.  After  the  lapse  of  a 
year  she  discovers  that  she  holds  her  property  by 
a  wrongful  title,  and  is  compelled  to  transfer  it 
to  her  cousin,  a  widowed  baronet,  with  several 
children,  who,  however,  gallantly  repairs  the 
injury  thus  judicially  inflicted,  by  making  her  his 
wife.  The  work  may  be  qualified,  therefore,  in 
strictness,  as  the  history  of  the  pecuniary  em 
barrassments  of  a  middle-aged  spinster.  The 
subject  has,  at  least,  the  charm  of  novelty,  a 

"Miss  Mackenzie."  By  Anthony  Trollope.  New  York: 
1865. 

68 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

merit  of  which  the  author  has  wisely  appreciated 
the  force.  We  had  had  heroines  of  many  kinds, 
maidens  in  their  teens,  yea,  even  in  their  units, 
and  matrons  in  their  twenties,  but  as  yet  we  had 
had  no  maidens  in  their  thirties.  We,  for  our  part, 
have  often  been  called  upon  to  protest  against 
the  inveterate  and  excessive  immaturity  of  the 
ladies  in  whose  fortunes  we  are  expected  to  in 
terest  ourselves,  and  we  are  sincerely  grateful  to 
Mr.  Trollope  for  having  practically  recognized  the 
truth  that  a  woman  is  potentially  a  heroine  as 
long  as  she  lives.  To  many  persons  a  middle-aged 
woman  in  love  trenches  upon  the  ridiculous. 
Such  persons  may  be  assured,  however,  that  al 
though  there  is  considerable  talk  about  this 
passion  in  "Miss  Mackenzie",  there  is  very  little 
of  its  substance.  Mr.  Trollope  has  evidently  been 
conscious  of  the  precarious  nature  of  his  heroines' 
dignity,  and  in  attempting  to  cancel  the  peril  to 
which  it  is  exposed,  he  has  diminished  the  real 
elements  of  passion.  This  is  apt  to  be  the  case  in 
Mr.  Trollope's  stories.  Passion  has  to  await  the 
convenience  of  so  many  other  claimants  that  in 
the  end  she  is  but  scantly  served.  As  for  action, 
we  all  know  what  we  are  to  expect  of  Mr.  Trollope 
in  this  direction;  and  the  admirers  of  "quiet 
novels",  as  they  are  somewhat  euphuistically 
termed,  will  not  be  disappointed  here.  Miss 
Mackenzie  loses  her  brother,  and  assumes  his 
property:  she  then  adopts  her  little  niece,  takes 
lodgings  at  Littlebath,  returns  a  few  visits,  pro- 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

cures  a  seat  at  church,  puts  her  niece  at  school, 
receives  a  few  awkward  visits  from  a  couple  of 
vulgar  bachelors,  quarrels  with  her  pastor's  wife, 
goes  to  stay  with  some  dull  old  relatives,  loses  her 
money,  falls  out  with  the  dull  relatives,  is  taken 
up  by  a  fashionable  cousin  and  made  to  serve  in 
a  fancy  fair,  and  finally  receives  and  accepts  an 
offer  from  another  cousin.  Except  the  acquisi 
tion  and  loss  of  her  property,  which  events  are 
detailed  at  great  length,  she  has  no  adventures. 
Her  life  could  not  well  be  more  peaceful.  She 
certainly  suffers  and  enjoys  less  than  most  women. 
Granting,  that  the  adventures  entailed  upon  her 
by  her  luckless  £800  a  year  are  such  as  may 
properly  mark  her  for  our  observation  and  com 
pensate  for  the  lack  of  incidents  more  dramatic, 
Mr.  Trollope  may  consider  that  he  has  hit  the 
average  of  the  experience  of  unmarried  English 
ladies.  It  is  perhaps  impossible  to  overstate  the 
habitual  monotony  of  such  lives;  and  at  all  events, 
as  far  as  the  chronicler  of  domestic  events  has 
courage  to  go  in  this  direction,  so  far  will  a  certain 
proportion  of  facts  bear  him  out.  Literally,  then, 
Mr.  Trollope  accomplishes  his  purpose  of  being  true 
to  common  life.  But  in  reading  his  pages,  we  were 
constantly  induced  to  ask  ourselves  whether  he  is 
equally  true  to  nature;  that  is,  whether  in  the  midst 
of  this  multitude  of  real  things,  of  uncompro 
misingly  real  circumstances,  the  persons  put  before 
us  are  equally  real.  Mr.  Trollope  has  proposed  to 
himself  to  describe  those  facts  which  are  so  close 

70 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

under  every  one's  nose  that  no  one  notices  them. 
Life  is  vulgar,  but  we  know  not  how  vulgar  it  is 
till  we  see  it  set  down  in  his  pages.  It  may  be  said, 
therefore,  that  the  emotions  which  depend  upon 
such  facts  as  these  cannot  be  too  prosaic;  that  as 
prison  discipline  makes  men  idiots,  an  approach, 
however  slight,  to  this  kind  of  influence  perceptibly 
weakens  the  mind.  We  are  yet  compelled  to 
doubt  whether  men  and  women  of  healthy  in 
tellect  take  life,  even  in  its  smallest  manifesta 
tion,  as  stupidly  as  Miss  Mackenzie  and  her  friends. 
Mr.  Trollope  has,  we  conceive,  simply  wished  to 
interest  us  in  ordinary  mortals:  it  has  not  been 
his  intention  to  introduce  us  to  a  company  of 
imbeciles.  But,  seriously,  we  do  not  consider 
these  people  to  be  much  better.  Detach  them 
from  their  circumstances,  reduce  them  to  their 
essences,  and  what  do  they  amount  to?  They  are 
but  the  halves  of  men  and  women.  The  accumu 
lation  of  minute  and  felicitous  circumstances 
which  constitutes  the  modern  novel  sheds  such  a 
glamour  of  reality  over  the  figures  which  sustain 
the  action  that  we  forbear  to  scrutinize  them 
separately.  The  figures  are  the  generals  in  the 
argument;  the  facts  are  the  particulars.  The 
persons  should  accordingly  reflect  life  upon  the 
details,  and  not  borrow  it  from  them.  To  do  so 
is  only  to  borrow  the  contagion  of  death.  This 
latter  part  is  the  part  they  play,  and  with  this 
result,  as  it  seems  to  us,  in  "Miss  Mackenzie." 
It  is  possible  that  this  result  is  Mr.  Trollope's 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

misfortune  rather  than  his  fault.  He  has  en 
countered  it  in  trying  to  avoid  an  error  which  he 
doubtless  considers  more  pernicious  still,  that  of 
overcharging  nature.  He  has  doubtless  done  his 
best  to  give  us  the  happy  middle  truth.  But  ah, 
if  the  truth  is  not  so  black  as  she  is  sometimes 
painted,  neither  is  she  so  pale! 

We  do  not  expect  from  the  writers  of  Mr. 
Trollope's  school  (and  this  we  esteem  already  a 
great  concession)  that  they  shall  contribute  to  the 
glory  of  human  nature;  but  we  may  at  least  exact 
that  they  do  not  wantonly  detract  from  it.  Mr. 
Trollope's  offence  is,  after  all,  deliberate.  He  has 
deliberately  selected  vulgar  illustrations.  His 
choice  may  indeed  be  explained  by  an  infirmity  for 
which  he  is  not  responsible:  we  mean  his  lack  of 
imagination.  But  when  a  novelist's  imagination 
is  weak,  his  judgment  should  be  strong.  Such  was 
the  case  with  Thackeray.  Mr.  Trollope  is  of 
course  wise,  in  view  of  the  infirmity  in  question,  in 
devoting  himself  to  those  subjects  which  least 
expose  it.  He  is  an  excellent,  an  admirable 
observer;  and  such  an  one  may  accomplish  much. 
But  why  does  he  not  observe  great  things  as  well 
as  little  ones?  It  was  by  doing  so  that  Thackeray 
wrote  "Henry  Esmond."  Mr.  Trollope's  devotion 
to  little  things,  inveterate,  self-sufficient  as  it 
is,  begets  upon  the  reader  the  very  disagreeable 
impression  that  not  only  no  imagination  was  re 
quired  for  the  work  before  him,  but  that  a  man  of 
imagination  could  not  possibly  have  written  it. 

72 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

A  more  richly-gifted  writer  would  miss  many  of  his 
small  (that  is,  his  great)  effects.  It  must  be  ad 
mitted,  however,  that  he  would  obtain  on  the 
other  hand  a  number  of  truly  great  ones.  Yet,  as 
great  effects  are  generally  produced  at  present  by 
small  means,  Mr.  Trollope  is  master  of  a  wide 
field!  He  deals  wholly  in  small  effects.  His 
manner,  like  most  of  the  literary  manners  of  the 
day,  is  a  small  manner.  And  what  a  strange 
phenomenon,  when  we  reflect  upon  it,  is  this  same 
small  manner!  What  an  anomaly  in  a  work  of 
imagination  is  such  a  chapter  as  that  in  which 
our  author  describes  Mrs.  Tom  Mackenzie's 
shabby  dinner  party.  It  is  as  well  described  as 
it  possibly  could  be.  Nothing  is  omitted.  It  is 
almost  as  good  as  certain  similar  scenes  in  the 
"Book  of  Snobs."  It  makes  the  reader's  ear 
tingle  and  his  cheeks  to  redden  with  shame. 
Nothing,  we  say,  is  omitted;  but,  alas!  nothing  is 
infused.  The  scene  possesses  no  interest  but  such 
as  resides  in  the  crude  facts:  and  as  this  is  null, 
the  picture  is  clever,  it  is  faithful,  it  is  even 
horrible,  but  it  is  not  interesting.  There  we  touch 
upon  the  difference  between  the  great  manner  and 
the  small  manner;  herein  lies  the  reason  why  in 
such  scenes  Mr.  Trollope  is  only  almost  as  good  as 
Thackeray.  It  can  generally  be  said  of  this  small 
manner  that  it  succeeds;  cleverness  is  certain  of 
success;  it  never  has  the  vertigo;  it  is  only  genius 
and  folly  that  fail.  But  in  what  does  it  succeed? 
That  is  the  test  question:  the  question  which  it 

73 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

behooves  us  to  impose  now-a-days  with  ever 
growing  stringency  upon  works  of  art;  for  it  is  the 
answer  to  this  question  that  should  approve  or 
condemn  them.  It  is  small  praise  to  say  of  a 
novelist  that  he  succeeds  in  mortifying  the  reader. 
Yet  Mr.  Trollope  is  master  of  but  two  effects:  he 
renders  his  reader  comfortable  or  the  reverse. 
As  long  as  he  restricts  himself  to  this  scale  of 
emotion,  of  course  he  has  no  need  of  imagination, 
for  imagination  speaks  to  the  heart.  In  the  scene 
here  mentioned,  Mr.  Trollope,  as  we  have  said, 
mortifies  the  reader;  in  other  scenes  he  fosters  his 
equanimity,  and  his  plan,  indeed,  is  generally 
to  leave  him  in  a  pleasant  frame  of  mind. 

This  is  all  very  well;  and  we  are  perhaps  ill 
advised  to  expect  sympathy  for  any  harsh  strict 
ures  upon  a  writer  who  renders  such  excellent 
service.  Let  us,  however,  plainly  disavow  a 
harsh  intention.  Let  us,  in  the  interest  of  our 
argument,  heartily  recognize  his  merits.  His 
merits,  indeed!  he  has  only  too  many.  His  manner 
is  literally  freckled  with  virtues.  We  use  this 
term  advisedly,  because  its  virtues  are  all  virtues 
of  detail:  the  virtues  of  the  photograph.  The  pho 
tograph  lacks  the  supreme  virtue  of  possessing  a 
character.  It  is  the  detail  alone  that  distinguishes 
one  photograph  from  another.  What  but  the 
details  distinguishes  one  of  Mr.  Trollope's  novels 
from  another,  and,  if  we  may  use  the  expression, 
consigns  it  to  itself?  Of  course  the  details  are 
charming,  some  of  them  ineffably  charming.  The 

74 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

ingenuous  loves,  the  innocent  flirtations,  of  Young 
England,  have  been  described  by  Mr.  Trollope 
in  such  a  way  as  to  secure  him  the  universal 
public  good-will;  described  minutely,  sympatheti 
cally,  accurately;  if  it  were  not  that  an  indefinable 
instinct  bade  us  to  keep  the  word  in  reserve,  we 
should  say  truthfully.  The  story  of  Miss  Mac 
kenzie  lacks  this  element  of  vernal  love-making. 
The  most  that  can  be  said  of  the  affairs  of  this 
lady's  heart  is  that  they  are  not  ridiculous.  They 
are  assuredly  not  interesting;  and  they  are  in 
volved  in  much  that  is  absolutely  repulsive. 
When  you  draw  on  the  grand  scale,  a  certain 
amount  of  coarseness  in  your  lines  is  excusable; 
but  when  you  work  with  such  short  and  cautious 
strokes  as  Mr.  Trollope,  it  behooves  you,  above 
all  things,  to  be  delicate.  Still,  taking  the  book  in 
its  best  points,  the  development  of  Miss  Mac 
kenzie's  affections  would  not,  in  actual  life,  be  a 
phenomenon  worthy  of  an  intelligent  spectator. 
What  rights,  then,  accrue  to  it  in  print?  Miss 
Mackenzie  is  an  utterly  commonplace  person, 
and  her  lover  is  almost  a  fool.  He  is  apparently 
unsusceptible  of  the  smallest  inspiration  from  the 
events  of  his  life.  W7hy  should  we  follow  the  for 
tunes  of  such  people  ?  They  vulgarize  experience 
and  all  the  other  heavenly  gifts.  Why  should  we 
stop  to  gather  nettles  when  there  are  roses  bloom 
ing  under  our  hands  ?  Why  should  we  batten  upon 
over-cooked  prose  while  the  air  is  redolent  with 
undistilled  poetry?  It  is  perhaps  well  that  we 

75 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

should  learn  how  superficial,  how  spiritless,  how 
literal  human  feeling  may  become;  but  is  a  novel 
here  our  proper  lesson-book?  Clever  novels  may 
be  manufactured  of  such  material  as  this;  but  to 
outweigh  a  thousand  merits  they  will  have  the 
one  defect,  that  they  are  monstrous.  They  will  be 
anomalies.  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold,  however,  has 
recently  told  us  that  a  large  class  of  Englishmen 
consider  it  no  objection  to  a  thing  that  it  is  an 
anomaly.  Mr.  Trollope  is  doubtless  one  of  the 
number. 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 


VIII 

The  Schonberg-fytta  Family 

/1PHE  wide  circulation  obtained  by  this  work 
•*•  and  its  successors  we  attribute  to  their  clever 
interfusion,  and,  indeed,  we  might  almost  say 
confusion,  of  history  and  fiction  with  religion. 
They  offer  neither  the  best  history,  the  best  piety, 
nor  the  best  fiction,  but  they  appeal  to  a  public 
which  has  long  since  become  reconciled  to  com 
promise  —  that  extensive  public,  so  respectable 
in  everything  but  its  literary  taste,  which  patro 
nizes  what  is  called  "Sunday  reading."  We  do 
not  propose  to  examine  the  theory  of  this  branch 
of  literature.  It  is  an  implicitly  accepted  fact. 
We  propose  simply  to  offer  a  few  remarks  upon 
the  works  before  us  as  its  fruit. 

The  foremost  property  of  the  school  to  which 
these  works  belong  is  an  attempted,  and,  to  a 
certain  degree,  successful  compromise  between 
the  interests  of  youth  and  those  of  maturity,  be 
tween  the  serious  and  the  trivial.  This,  indeed, 

"Hearthstone  Series:  Chronicles  of  the  Schonberg-Cotta 
Family;  The  Early  Dawn:  Sketches  of  Christian  Life  in  Eng 
land  in  the  Olden  Time;  Sketches  of  the  United  Brethren  of 
Bohemia  and  Moravia;  Diary  of  Mrs.  Kitty  Trevylyan:  a 
Story  of  the  Times  of  Whitefield  and  the  Wesleys."  New 
York:  1865. 

77 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

is  the  mark  of  a  vast  proportion  of  the  efforts  of 
modern  book-making  —  efforts  which  in  their 
aggregate  may  be  regarded  as  an  attempt  to  pro 
vide  a  special  literature  for  women  and  children, 
to  provide  books  which  grown  women  may  read 
aloud  to  children  without  either  party  being 
bored.  Books  of  this  class  never  aim  at  anything 
so  simple  as  merely  to  entertain.  They  frequently 
contain,  as  in  the  present  case,  an  infusion  of  re 
ligious  and  historical  information,  and  they  in 
all  cases  embody  a  moral  lesson.  This  latter  fact 
is  held  to  render  them  incompetent  as  novels; 
and  doubtless,  after  all,  it  does,  for  of  a  genuine 
novel  the  meaning  and  the  lesson  are  infinite; 
and  here  they  are  carefully  narrowed  down  to  a 
special  precept. 

It  would  be  unjust  to  deny  that  these  semi- 
developed  novels  are  often  very  charming.  Oc 
casionally,  like  the  "Heir  of  Redclyffe",  they 
almost  legitimate  themselves  by  the  force  of 
genius.  But  this  only  when  a  first-rate  mind 
takes  the  matter  in  hand.  By  a  first-rate  mind 
we  here  mean  a  mind  which  (since  its  action  is 
restricted  beforehand  to  the  shortest  gait,  the 
smallest  manners  possible  this  side  of  the  ridicu 
lous)  is  the  master  and  not  the  slave  of  its  material. 
It  is  just  now  very  much  the  fashion  to  discuss 
the  so-called  principle  of  realism,  and  we  all 
know  that  there  exists  in  France  a  school  of  art 
in  which  it  is  associated  with  great  brilliancy  and 
great  immorality.  The  disciples  of  this  school 

78 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

pursue,  with  an  assiduity  worthy  of  a  better 
cause,  the  research  of  local  colors,  with  which 
they  have  produced  a  number  of  curious  effects. 
We  believe,  however,  that  the  greatest  successes 
in  this  line  are  reserved  for  that  branch  of  the 
school  which  contains  the  most  female  writers; 
for  if  women  are  unable  to  draw,  they  notoriously 
can  at  all  events  paint,  and  this  is  what  realism 
requires.  For  an  exhibition  of  the  true  realistic 
chic  we  would  accordingly  refer  that  body  of 
artists  who  are  represented  in  France  by  MM. 
Flaubert  and  Gerome  to  that  class  of  works  which 
in  our  literature  are  represented  by  the  "Daisy 
Chain"  and  "The  Wide,  Wide  World",  and  to 
which  the  "Chronicles"  before  us  essentially 
belong.  Until  the  value  of  chic  can  be  finally 
established,  we  should  doubtless  be  thankful  that 
in  our  literature  it  lends  its  vivifying  force  only 
to  objects  and  sensations  of  the  most  unques 
tioned  propriety.  In  these  "Chronicles,"  for  in 
stance,  it  is  impressed  into  the  service  of  religion. 
In  this  particular  instance,  the  healthy,  if  not 
very  lively,  fancy  of  the  author,  her  pleasant 
style,  and  her  apparent  religious  sincerity,  secure 
a  result  which  on  the  whole  is  not  uninteresting. 
But  the  radical  defects  of  the  theological  novel 
come  out  strongly  in  the  "Diary  of  Mrs.  Kitty 
Trevylyan",  where  the  story  is  but  a  thin  coat 
ing  for  a  bitter  pill  of  Methodism.  We  are  all  of 
us  Protestants,  and  we  are  all  of  us  glad  to  see 
the  Reformation  placed  in  its  most  favorable  light, 

79 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

but  as  we  are  not  all  of  us  Methodists,  it  is  hard 
to  sympathize  with  a  lady's  ex  parte  treatment  of 
John  Wesley.  Our  authoress  does  not  claim  to 
be  more  than  superficial,  and  it  were  better  not 
to  touch  Methodism  at  all  than  to  handle  it  super 
ficially.  It  is  probably  impossible  that  such  of 
the  phenomena  of  Methodism  as  might  with  any 
show  of  likelihood  find  an  echo  in  the  daily  jot 
tings  of  an  ordinary  country  girl  should  be  other 
than  repulsive  to  the  impartial  reader. 

The  "Chronicles"  present  a  kind  of  tabular 
view  of  the  domestic  pursuits  of  a  group  of  grow 
ing  boys  and  girls,  contemporaries  and  friends  of 
Martin  Luther.  Of  this,  the  central  figure  in  her 
narrative,  the  authoress  has  discreetly  given  us 
only  a  portrait  in  profile.  Her  object  has  been  to 
give  us  a  household  picture  of  the  Reformation. 
But  it  is  the  misfortune  of  short-gaited  writers 
that  they  are  unable  to  carry  out  an  idea  which 
demands  any  continuity  of  purpose.  They  en 
joy,  however,  this  compensation,  that  if  they  do 
not  succeed  in  one  thing,  they  may  reasonably  be 
held  to  have  succeeded  in  another.  Of  history  in 
the  "Chronicles"  there  is  just  as  much  as  may 
have  been  obtained  by  an  attentive  perusal  of 
M.  Merle  d'Aubigne.  But  there  is  a  great  deal 
of  what  has  been  very  wittily  called  "her  story." 
A  very  small  part  of  the  Reformation  must  neces 
sarily  have  been  seen  from  the  leaded  window- 
panes  of  an  obscure  Saxon  printer.  But  a  certain 
infinitesimal  portion  of  it  may  very  naturally 

80 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

have  transpired  in  the  quaint  and  wainscotted 
rooms  behind  these  window-panes,  especially  if 
the  printer's  family  happened  to  boast  the  ac 
quaintance  of  Doctor  Luther.  When  we  have 
said  that  the  author  has  conveyed  the  impression 
of  all  this  Gothic  furniture  with  tolerable  success, 
we  have  given  to  the  truthfulness  of  her  work 
the  highest  praise  at  our  command.  For  this  a 
pleasing  fancy  was  alone  required;  but  for  those 
more  difficult  portions  which  involved  the  re 
construction  of  feelings  and  ideas,  there  was 
need  of  that  vigorous  imagination  and  that  serious 
reflection  which  can  stand  on  tiptoe  and  overlook 
three  centuries  of  civilization. 

The  author's  whole  tone  is  the  tone  of  the  re 
trospective  present.  She  anticipates  throughout 
the  judgments  of  posterity.  Morally,  her  young 
chroniclers  are  of  the  nineteenth  century,  or  they 
at  least  have  had  access  to  it.  The  subjects  of 
great  revolutions  are  like  the  rank  and  file  of 
great  armies,  they  are  all  unconscious  of  the  direc 
tion  and  force  of  the  movement  to  which  they 
contribute.  Our  civil  war  has  taught  us,  among 
so  many  other  valuable  lessons,  the  gross  natural 
blindness  —  that  is,  we  are  bound  in  reason  to 
believe,  the  clear  spiritual  insight  —  of  great 
popular  impulses.  It  has  intimated  that  if  these 
were  of  men  only  they  would  often  miscarry  for 
very  shame.  But  men's  natural  deserts  are  fre 
quently  at  variance  with  their  spiritual  needs; 
and  they  are  allowed  to  execute  the  divine  plan 

8l 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

not  only  by  their  own  petty  practices,  but  on 
their  own  petty  theories;  not  only  by  obedience 
but  by  spontaneity.  We  are  very  apt  to  do  small 
things  in  God's  name,  but  God  does  great  things 
in  ours.  The  sagacious  Schonbergs-Cotta  are  by 
far  too  divinely  illumined,  too  well  aware  of  what 
they  want,  and  of  what  they  are  likely  to  get. 
There  must  have  been  a  great  deal  more  of  feel 
ing  than  of  thought  in  the  Reformation,  and 
almost  as  much  of  action  as  of  either.  People 
loved  and  hated,  and  feared  and  fought,  and  —  a 
fact,  we  imagine,  which  is  near  the  bottom  of 
much  that  is  of  revolutionary  effect  —  were 
dreadfully  nervous;  but  we  may  be  certain  that 
they  did  not  moralize  as  we  moralize  now-a-days. 
Protestantism  is  still  on  the  whole  sufficiently 
orthodox;  but  we  are  all  of  us  more  or  less  Uni 
tarians  in  spirit  compared  with  the  founders  of 
our  creed.  What  was  done  both  by  them  and  by 
their  opponents  was  done  in  the  absolute  name  of 
religion.  How  then  should  it  have  been  done  at 
all?  "When  half-gods  go/'  says  Emerson,  "the 
gods  arrive."  Assuredly,  when  the  gods  arrive, 
the  half-gods  depart.  When  religion  enters  in 
force,  moral  pre-occupations  withdraw.  Duty 
was  not  probably  an  habitual  topic  with  the  Re 
formers.  We  doubt  whether  a  simple  burgher's 
daughter  was  familiar  with  the  word  "conscien 
tious."  That  she  had  a  conscience  is  eminently 
probable,  but  we  hardly  believe  that  she  knew  it. 
Nor  can  we  conceive  her  to  have  been  troubled 

82 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

with  "views"  or  "difficulties."  But  however  this 
may  be,  let  us  not  bear  severely  on  any  honest 
attempt  to  revive  the  great  facts  of  the  past.  If 
people  must  indulge  in  the  composition  of  in 
genious  nothings,  let  their  nothings  be  about  a 
central  something.  Let  us  hang  our  fancies  rather 
upon  the  immortal  than  upon  the  ephemeral. 
Works  like  the  present  affect  the  great  figure  of 
history  as  much  and  as  little  as  the  travelling 
cloud-shadows  affect  the  insensitive  mountains. 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 


IX 

Can  Ton  Forgive  Her? 

^  I  AHIS  new  novel  of  Mr.  Trollope's  has  nothing 
*-  new  to  teach  us  either  about  Mr.  Trollope 
himself  as  a  novelist,  about  English  society  as  a 
theme  for  the  novelist,  or,  failing  information  on 
these  points,  about  the  complex  human  heart. 
Take  any  one  of  his  former  tales,  change  the 
names  of  half  the  characters,  leave  the  others 
standing,  and  transpose  the  incidents,  and  you 
will  have  "Can  You  Forgive  Her?"  It  is  neither 
better  nor  worse  than  the  tale  which  you  will 
select.  It  became  long  ago  apparent  that  Mr. 
Trollope  had  only  one  manner.  In  this  manner 
he  very  soon  showed  us  his  maximum.  He  has 
recently,  in  "Miss  Mackenzie",  showed  us  his 
minimum.  In  the  work  before  us  he  has  remained 
pretty  constantly  at  his  best.  There  is,  indeed,  a 
certain  amount  of  that  inconceivably  vulgar  love- 
making  between  middle-aged  persons  by  which 
"Miss  Mackenzie"  was  distinguished;  but  the 
burden  of  the  story  rests  upon  the  young  people. 

For  so  thick  a  book,  there  is  certainly  very  little 
story.    There  are  no  less  than  three  different  plots, 

"Can  You  Forgive  Her?"     By  Anthony  Trollope.     New 
York:  1865. 

84 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

however,  if  the  word  can  be  applied  to  Mr.  Trol- 
lope's  simple  machinations.  That  is,  there  is  a 
leading  story,  which,  being  foreseen  at  the  outset 
to  be  insufficient  to  protract  the  book  during  the 
requisite  number  of  months,  is  padded  with  a 
couple  of  underplots,  one  of  which  comes  almost 
near  being  pathetic,  as  the  other  falls  very  far 
short  of  being  humorous.  The  main  narrative,  of 
course,  concerns  the  settlement  in  life  —  it  is 
hard  to  give  it  a  more  sentimental  name  —  of  a 
beautiful  young  lady.  Alice  Vavasar,  well-born, 
high-spirited,  motherless,  and  engaged  to  Mr. 
John  Grey,  the  consummate  model  of  a  Christian 
gentleman,  mistrusting  the  quality  of  her  affec 
tion,  breaks  off  her  engagement,  after  which,  in  a 
moment  of  enthusiasm,  she  renews  an  anterior 
engagement  with  her  cousin,  George  Vavasar,  a 
plausible  rascal.  John  Grey  will  not  be  put  off, 
however,  and  steadfastly  maintains  his  suit.  In 
the  course  of  time  George's  villany  is  discovered. 
He  attempts,  unsuccessfully,  to  murder  Grey. 
Grey  follows  his  mistress,  pleads  his  cause  once 
more,  and  is  taken  back  again.  The  question  is, 
Can  we  forgive  Miss  Vavasar?  Of  course  we  can, 
and  forget  her,  too,  for  that  matter.  What  does 
Mr.  Trollope  mean  by  this  question?  It  is  a  good 
instance  of  the  superficial  character  of  his  work 
that  he  has  been  asking  it  once  a  month  for  so 
long  a  time  without  being  struck  by  its  flagrant 
impertinence.  What  are  we  to  forgive?  Alice 
Vavasar's  ultimate  acceptance  of  John  Grey 

85 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

makes  her  temporary  ill-treatment  of  him,  viewed 
as  a  moral  question,  a  subject  for  mere  drawing- 
room  gossip.  There  are  few  of  Mr.  Trollope's 
readers  who  will  not  resent  being  summoned  to 
pass  judgment  on  such  a  sin  as  the  one  here  pre 
sented,  to  establish  by  precedent  the  criminality 
of  the  conscientious  flutterings  of  an  excellent 
young  lady.  Charming  women,  thanks  to  the 
talent  of  their  biographers,  have  been  forgiven 
much  greater  improprieties.  Since  forgiveness 
was  to  be  brought  into  the  question,  why  did  not 
Mr.  Trollope  show  us  an  error  that  we  might 
really  forgive  —  an  error  that  would  move  us  to 
indignation?  It  is  too  much  to  be  called  upon  to 
take  cognizance  in  novels  of  sins  against  conven 
tion,  of  improprieties;  we  have  enough  of  these  in 
life.  We  can  have  charity  and  pity  only  for  real 
sin  and  real  misery.  We  trust  to  novels  to  main 
tain  us  in  the  practice  of  great  indignations  and 
great  generosities.  Miss  Vavasar's  dilemma  is 
doubtless  considerable  enough  in  itself,  but  by 
the  time  it  is  completely  unfolded  by  Mr.  Trollope 
it  has  become  so  trivial,  it  is  associated  with  so 
much  that  is  of  a  merely  accidental  interest,  it  is 
so  deflowered  of  the  bloom  of  a  serious  experience, 
that  when  we  are  asked  to  enter  into  it  judicially, 
we  feel  almost  tempted  to  say  that  really  it  is 
Miss  Vavasar's  own  exclusive  business.  From  the 
moment  that  a  novel  comes  to  a  happy  conclu 
sion,  we  can  forgive  everything  — -  or  nothing. 
The  gradual  publication  of  "Can  You  Forgive 

86 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

Her?"  made  its  readers  familiar  with  the  appeal 
resting  upon  their  judgment  long  before  they  were 
in  a  position  to  judge.  The  only  way,  it  seems  to 
us,  to  justify  this  appeal  and  to  obviate  the  fla 
grant  anti-climax  which  the  work  now  presents, 
was  to  lead  the  story  to  a  catastrophe,  to  leave 
the  heroine  prima  facie  in  the  wrong,  to  make  her 
rupture  with  Grey,  in  a  word,  final.  Then  we 
might  have  forgiven  her  in  consideration  of  the 
lonely  years  of  repentance  in  store  for  her,  and  of 
her  having  been  at  any  rate  consistent.  Then  the 
world's  forgiveness  would  have  been  of  some  im 
portance  to  her.  Now,  at  one  for  ever  with  her 
lover,  what  matters  our  opinion?  It  certainly 
matters  very  little  to  ourselves. 

Mr.  Trollope's  book  presents  no  feature  more 
remarkable  than  the  inveteracy  with  which  he 
just  eludes  being  really  serious;  unless  it  be  the 
almost  equal  success  with  which  he  frequently 
escapes  being  really  humorous.  Both  of  these  re 
sults  are  the  penalty  of  writing  so  rapidly;  but  as 
in  much  rapid  writing  we  are  often  made  to  regret 
the  absence  of  that  sober  second  thought  which 
may  curtail  an  extravagance  —  that  critical  move 
ment  which,  if  you  will  only  give  it  time,  is  surely 
to  follow  the  creative  one  —  so  in  Mr.  Trollope 
we  perpetually  miss  that  sustained  action  of  the 
imagination,  that  creative  movement  which  in 
those  in  whom  this  faculty  is  not  supreme  may,  if 
you  will  give  it  time,  bear  out  the  natural  or  crit 
ical  one,  which  would  intensify  and  animate  his 

87 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

first  conception.  We  are  for  ever  wishing  that  he 
would  go  a  little  further,  a  little  deeper.  There 
are  a  hundred  places  in  "Can  You  Forgive  Her?" 
where  even  the  dullest  readers  will  be  sure  to  ex 
press  this  wish.  For  ourselves,  we  were  very 
much  disappointed  that  when  Alice  returns  to  her 
cousin  George  she  should  not  do  so  more  frankly, 
that  on  eventually  restoring  herself  to  Grey  she 
should  have  so  little  to  expiate  or  to  forget,  that 
she  should  leave  herself,  in  short,  so  easy  an  issue 
by  her  refusal  to  admit  Vavasar  to  a  lover's  privi 
lege.  Our  desire  for  a  different  course  of  action 
is  simply  founded  on  the  fact  that  it  would  have 
been  so  much  more  interesting.  When  it  is  pro 
posed  to  represent  a  young  girl  as  jilting  her  lover 
in  such  a  way  as  that  the  moral  of  the  tale  resolves 
itself  into  the  question  of  the  venality  of  her  of 
fence,  it  evinces  in  the  novelist  a  deep  insensibility 
to  his  opportunities  that  he  should  succeed,  after 
all,  in  making  of  the  tragedy  but  a  simple  post 
ponement  of  the  wedding-day. 

To  Mr.  Trollope  all  the  possible  incidents  of 
society  seem  to  be  of  equal  importance  and  of 
equal  interest.  He  has  the  same  treatment,  the 
same  tone,  for  them  all.  After  narrating  the 
minutest  particulars  of  a  certain  phase  of  his 
heroine's  experience,  he  will  dwell  with  equal 
length  and  great  patience  upon  the  proceedings 
of  a  vulgar  widow  (the  heroine's  aunt),  who  is 
engaged  in  playing  fast  and  loose  with  a  couple 
of  vulgar  suitors.  With  what  authority  can  we 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

invest  the  pen  which  treats  of  the  lovely  niece, 
when  we  see  it  devoted  with  the  same  good- will 
to  the  utterly  prosaic  and  unlovely  aunt?  It  is 
of  course  evident  that  Mr.  Trollope  has  not  in 
tended  to  make  the  aunt  either  poetic  or  attrac 
tive.  He  has  intended,  in  the  first  place,  to  swell 
his  book  into  the  prescribed  dimensions,  and,  in 
cidentally,  to  make  the  inserted  matter  amusing. 
A  single  chapter  of  it  might  be  amusing;  a  dozen 
chapters  are  inexpressibly  wearisome.  The  un 
due  prominence  assigned  to  this  episode  is  yet 
not  so  signal  an  offence  against  good  judgment  as 
the  subordination  of  Lady  Glencora  Palliser's 
story  to  that  of  Alice  Vavasar's.  It  is  a  great 
mistake  in  speaking  of  a  novel  to  be  over-positive 
as  to  what  ought  to  be  and  what  ought  not;  but 
we  do  not  fear  to  dogmatize  when  we  say  that  by 
rights  Lady  Glencora  is  the  heroine  of  the  book. 
Her  adventure  is  more  important,  more  dramatic, 
more  interesting  than  Alice  Vavasar's.  That  it  is 
more  interesting  is  not  a  matter  of  opinion,  but  a 
matter  of  fact.  A  woman  who  forsakes  her  hus 
band  belongs  more  to  the  technical  heroic  than  a 
woman  who  merely  forsakes  her  lover.  Lady 
Glencora,  young  and  fascinating,  torn  from  the 
man  of  her  heart  and  married  to  a  stranger,  and 
pursued  after  marriage  by  her  old  lover,  hand 
some,  dissolute,  desperate,  touches  at  a  hundred 
points  almost  upon  the  tragical.  And  yet  her  his 
tory  gets  itself  told  as  best  it  may,  in  the  intervals 
of  what  is  after  all,  considering  the  denouement^ 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

but  a  serious  comedy.  It  is,  to  use  a  common 
illustration,  as  if  Mr.  Forest  should  appear  on  the 
"off-nights"  of  no  matter  what  fainter  dramatic 
luminary.  It  signifies  little  in  the  argument  that 
Lady  Glencora's  adventure  came  also  to  an  anti 
climax;  for  in  this  case  the  reader  rejects  the  con 
clusion  as  a  mere  begging  of  the  issue.  Of  all 
literary  sinners  Mr.  Trollope  deserves  fewest  hard 
words,  but  we  can  scarcely  refrain  from  calling 
this  conclusion  impudent.  To  a  real  novelist's 
eye,  the  story  on  which  it  depends  is  hardly  be 
gun;  to  Mr.  Trollope,  it  is  satisfactorily  ended. 
The  only  explanation  of  all  this  is  probably  that 
the  measure  of  his  invention  is  not  in  his  subject, 
in  his  understanding  with  his  own  mind;  but  out 
side  of  it,  in  his  understanding  with  his  publishers. 
Poor  little  Lady  Glencora,  with  her  prettiness, 
her  grace,  her  colossal  fortune,  and  her  sorrows,  is 
the  one  really  poetic  figure  in  the  novel.  Why 
not  have  dealt  her  a  little  poetic  justice?  Why 
not,  for  her  sake,  have  shown  a  little  boldness? 
We  do  not  presume  to  prescribe  to  Mr.  Trollope 
the  particular  thing  he  should  have  done;  we 
simply  affirm  in  general  terms  that  he  should  have 
gone  further.  Everything  forbade  that  Lady 
Glencora  and  her  lover  should  be  vulgarly  dis 
posed  of.  What  are  we  to  conclude?  It  is  easy 
to  conceive  either  that  Burgo  Fitzgerald  slowly 
wasted  his  life,  or  that  he  flung  it  suddenly  away. 
But  the  supposition  is  by  no  means  easy  that 
Lady  Glencora  either  wasted  hers  or  carefully 

90 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

economized  it.  Besides,  there  is  no  pretence  of 
winding  up  Burgo  Fitzgerald's  thread;  it  is  rudely 
clipped  by  the  editorial  shears.  There  is,  on  the 
contrary,  a  pretence  of  completing  the  destiny  of 
his  companion.  But  we  have  more  respect  for 
Lady  Glencora's  humanity  than  to  suppose  that 
the  incident  on  which  the  curtain  of  her  little 
tragedy  falls,  is  for  her  anything  more  than  an 
interruption.  Another  case  in  which  Mr.  Trol- 
lope  had  burdened  himself,  as  he  proceeded,  with 
the  obligation  to  go  further,  is  that  of  George 
Vavasar.  Upon  him,  as  upon  Lady  Glencora, 
there  hangs  a  faint  reflection  of  poetry.  In  both 
these  cases,  Mr.  Trollope,  dealing  with  an  un 
familiar  substance,  seems  to  have  evoked  a  ghost 
which  he  cannot  exorcise.  As  the  reader  follows 
George  Vavasar  deeper  into  his  troubles  —  all  of 
which  are  very  well  described  —  his  excited  imag 
ination  hankers  for  —  what  shall  we  say?  Noth 
ing  less  positive  than  Vavasar's  death.  Here  was 
a  chance  for  Mr.  Trollope  to  redeem  a  thousand 
pages  of  small  talk;  the  wretched  man  should  have 
killed  himself;  for  although  bloodshed  is  not  quite 
so  common  an  element  of  modern  life  as  the  sen 
sation  writers  would  have  us  believe,  yet  people 
do  occasionally,  when  hard  pushed,  commit  sui 
cide.  But  for  Mr.  Trollope  anything  is  prefer 
able  to  a  sensation;  an  incident  is  ever  preferable 
to  an  event.  George  Vavasar  simply  takes  ship 
to  America. 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

X 

The  Qayworthys 

/TAHIS  book  appears  to  have  been  suggested  by 
-*•  a  fanciful  theory  of  life,  which  the  author 
embodies  in  a  somewhat  over-figurative  preface, 
and  which  recurs  throughout  the  story  at  intervals, 
like  a  species  of  refrain.  The  theory  in  question 
amounts  to  neither  more  nor  less  than  this:  that 
life  is  largely  made  up  of  broken  threads,  of  plans 
arrested  in  their  development,  of  hopes  untimely 
crushed.  This  idea  is  neither  very  new  nor  very 
profound;  but  the  novel  formula  under  which  it 
is  shadowed  forth  on  the  title-page  will  probably 
cause  it  to  strike  many  well-disposed  minds  as 
for  the  first  time.  In  a  story  written  in  the  in 
terest  of  a  theory  two  excellent  things  are  almost 
certain  to  be  spoiled.  It  might  seem,  indeed, 
that  it  would  be  a  very  small  figure  of  a  story 
that  could  be  injured  by  a  theory  like  the  present 
one;  but  when  once  an  author  has  his  dogma  at 
heart,  unless  he  is  very  much  of  an  artist,  it  is 
sure  to  become  obtrusive  at  the  capital  moment, 
and  to  remind  the  reader  that  he  is,  after  all, 
learning  a  moral  lesson.  The  slightly  ingenious 
and  very  superficial  figure  in  which  the  author 

"The  Gayworthys  :  a  Story  of  Threads  and  Thrums."   [By 
Mrs.  A.  D.  T.  Whitney.]     Boston  :  1865. 

92 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

embodies  her  philosophy  recurs  with  a  frequency 
which  is  truly  impertinent. 

Our  story  is  organized  upon  three  main  threads, 
which,  considering  the  apparent  force  of  the  au 
thor's  conviction,  are  on  the  whole  very  tenderly 
handled;  inasmuch  as,  although  two  of  them  are 
at  moments  drawn  so  tight  that  we  are  fully  pre 
pared  for  the  final  snap  and  the  quiet  triumph  of 
the  author's  "I  told  you  so,"  yet  only  one  of 
them  is  really  severed  past  all  repair.  This 
catastrophe  symbolizes  the  fate  of  Miss  Rebecca 
Gayworthy,  who  cherishes  a  secret  flame  for  her 
pastor,  the  Rev.  Jordan  King.  Mr.  King,  in 
turn,  entertains  a  passion  for  another  young 
lady,  whom  he  marries,  but  who  is  not  all  for 
him  that  Miss  Gayworthy  would  have  been.  The 
broken  thread  here  is  Miss  Gayworthy's  slighted 
regard  for  Mr.  King. 

There  are  two  other  pairs  of  lovers  whose  much 
shifting  relations  fill  up  the  rest  of  the  book. 
Miss  Joanna  Gayworthy  is  gifted,  for  her  mis 
fortune,  with  a  lively  tongue  and  an  impetuous 
temper.  She  is  kept  for  a  number  of  years  the 
subject  of  one  of  those  gratuitous  misconceptions 
in  which  lady  novelists  delight.  To  our  mind 
there  is  quite  as  much  of  the  comical  as  of  the 
pathetic  in  her  misunderstanding  with  Gabriel 
Hartshorne.  Both  she  and  her  lover  seem  bent 
on  fixing  the  minimum  of  words  with  which  a 
courtship  can  be  conducted,  and  the  utmost  pos 
sible  impertinence  of  those  words.  They  fall  the 

93 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

natural  victims  to  their  own  ingenuity.  The  fault, 
however,  is  more  with  him  than  with  her.  If  she 
was  a  little  too  much  of  a  coquette,  he  was  far 
too  little  of  an  enthusiast.  Women  have  a  pre 
scriptive  right  to  answer  indirectly  at  serious 
moments;  but  men  labor  under  a  prescriptive  ob 
ligation  at  these  moments  to  speak  and  act  to 
the  point.  We  cannot  but  think  that  Gabriel  ob 
tained  his  mistress  quite  as  soon  as  he  had  won 
her. 

Of  the  parties  yet  mentioned,  however,  neither 
is  to  be  taken  for  the  hero  and  heroine  proper; 
for  in  the  presence  of  the  inevitable,  the  orthodox 
little  girl,  —  this  time,  fortunately,  matched  not 
with  a  condescending  man  of  the  world,  but  with 
a  lad  of  her  own  age,  —  in  the  presence,  we  say, 
of  these  heroic  figures,  who  shall  dare  to  claim 
that  distinction?  Sarah  Gair  and  Gershom  Vorse 
are  brought  up  together  in  the  fields,  like  another 
Daphnis  and  Chloe.  Gershom  is  sent  to  sea  by 
the  machinations  of  Sarah's  mother,  who  has  a 
quasi-prophetic  insight  into  what  may  be.  Sarah 
blossoms  into  young  ladyhood,  and  Gershom  ob 
tains  command  of  a  vessel.  In  the  course  of  time 
he  comes  home,  but,  we  regret  to  say,  with  little 
of  the  breezy  gallantry  of  his  profession.  For 
long  years  his  old  playmate  has  worn  his  image 
upon  her  heart  of  hearts.  He  utterly  fails  to  take 
cognizance  of  her  attachment,  and  in  fact  snubs 
her  most  unmercifully.  Thrums  again,  as  you 
see.  It  is  perhaps  hard  to  overstate  the  possi- 

94 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

bilities  of  man's  insensibility  as  opposed  to  wom 
an's  cunning  devotion.  But  the  whole  picture  of 
Gershom  Vorse  strikes  us  as  ill-conceived;  and 
yet  those  who  remember  Tom  Tulliver  in  "The 
Mill  on  the  Floss"  will  acknowledge  that  much 
can  be  made  in  a  dramatic  way  of  the  figure  of 
the  rational,  practical,  honest,  prejudiced  youth 
whose  responsibilities  begin  early.  It  is  perhaps 
natural  that  Gershom  Vorse's  contempt  for  the 
mother  should  have  predisposed  him  against  the 
daughter;  but  why  should  he  nurse  so  unmannerly 
an  intolerance  of  all  her  little  woman's  graces?  If 
Sarah  was  really  a  perfect  young  lady,  she  was 
too  good  for  this  grim  and  precocious  Puritan. 
He  despises  her  because,  being  a  young  lady,  she 
looks  and  dresses  like  one,  because  she  wears 
"puffed  muslin  and  dainty  boots."  Out  upon 
him!  What  should  he  care  about  such  things? 
That  this  trait  is  not  manly,  we  need  not  affirm; 
but  it  is  the  reverse  of  masculine. 

It  is  hardly  worth  while,  however,  to  criticise 
details  in  an  episode  which  is  so  radically  defec 
tive  as  this  one.  Its  radical  defect  is  the  degrada 
tion  of  sentiment  by  making  children  responsible 
for  it.  This  practice  is  becoming  the  bane  of  our 
novels.  It  signifies  little  where  it  began,  or  what 
authority  it  claims:  it  is,  in  our  opinion,  as  fatal 
to  the  dignity  of  serious  feeling  and  to  the  gran 
deur  of  strong  passions  as  the  most  flagrant  im 
moralities  of  French  fiction.  Heaven  defend  us 
from  the  puerile!  If  we  desire  to  read  about 

95 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

children,  we  shall  not  be  at  loss:  the  repertory  of 
juvenile  works  is  vast.  But  if  we  desire  to  learn 
the  various  circumstances  under  which  love- 
making  may  be  conducted,  let  us  not  repair  to 
the  nursery  and  the  school-room.  A  man's  child 
hood  and  his  manhood  can  never,  without  a  viola 
tion  of  truth,  be  made  the  same  story;  much  less 
may  the  youth  and  maturity  of  a  woman.  In 
"The  Gayworthys"  the  loves  of  the  two  young 
people  are  far  too  exclusively  projected  from  their 
infancy.  The  age  for  Daphnis  and  Chloe  has 
passed.  Passion  and  sentiment  must  always  be 
more  or  less  intelligent  not  to  shock  the  public 
taste.  There  are,  of  course,  few  things  so  charm 
ing  as  the  innocence  of  childhood,  just  as  there 
are  few  things  so  interesting  as  the  experience  of 
manhood.  But  they  cannot  in  a  love-story  be 
successfully  combined.  Thackeray's  great  genius 
was  insufficient  to  prevent  the  fruition  of  Henry 
Esmond's  boyish  devotion  from  seeming  very 
disagreeable.  Every  reader  feels  that,  if  he  had 
had  the  story  to  write,  that  should  not  have  been 
its  consummation.  There  is  in  the  experience  of 
every  man  and  woman  a  certain  proportion  of 
sensations  which  are  interesting  only  to  them 
selves.  To  this  class  of  feelings  we  would  refer 
the  childish  reminiscences  held  in  common  by 
two  persons  who  at  the  age  of  discretion  unite 
their  destinies.  A  man  seldom  falls  in  love  with 
the  young  girl  who  has  grown  up  at  his  side;  he 
either  likes  or  dislikes  her  too  much.  But  when 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

he  does,  it  is  from  quite  a  new  stand-point  and 
with  a  new  range  of  feelings.  He  does  not  woo 
her  in  the  name  of  their  juvenile  escapades.  These 
are  pretty  only  in  after  years,  when  there  is  no 
other  poetry  to  be  had.  And  they  are,  there 
fore,  quite  apart  from  the  purposes  of  the  serious 
novelist. 

So  much  for  the  faults  of  "The  Gayworthys." 
Let  us  now  pay  the  tribute  of  an  explicit  recogni 
tion  to  its  very  great  cleverness.  Without  this 
quality  no  novel  in  these  days  can  hope  to  suc 
ceed.  But  "The  Gayworthys"  has  even  more  of 
it  than  is  needed  for  success.  How  many  accom 
plishments  the  would-be  successful  novel  demands! 
and  how  many  are  here  displayed!  When  we 
count  them  over,  indeed,  we  are  half  amazed  at 
our  temerity  in  offering  these  prosy  strictures. 
The  observation,  the  memory,  the  invention,  the 
fancy,  the  humor,  the  love  of  human  nature, 
lavished  upon  these  four  hundred  pages  are  the 
results  almost  of  an  education.  Let  us,  we  re 
peat,  make  them  a  very  low  bow.  They  contain 
much  that  is  admirable  and  much  that  is  power 
ful.  It  is  for  this  reason  that,  when  we  see  them 
misused,  as  it  seems  to  us,  conjoined  with  what 
is  vulgar  and  false,  we  make  a  respectful  protest. 
We  know  not  whether  in  this  case  their  union 
makes  a  total  which  we  may  properly  call  genius; 
but  it  at  all  events  makes  a  force  sufficiently  like 
genius  not  to  be  able  with  impunity  to  work  in 
ignorance  of  principle.  We  do  not  claim  to  have 

97 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

laid  down  any  principles.  They  are  already  laid 
down  in  a  thousand  consummate  works  of  art. 
All  we  wish  to  do  here  —  all  we  have  space  to 
do  —  is  to  remind  the  author  of  "The  Gay- 
worthys  "  that  they  exist. 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 


XI 

French  Critic 

the  first  series  of  these  literary  studies, 
published  two  years  ago,  M.  Scherer  attached 
a  preface  which  he  doubtless  intends  shall  serve 
also  for  this  second  volume.  A  short  glance  at 
this  preface  will  initiate  us  into  the  author's  view 
of  the  limits  of  his  own  work.  "Custom  exacts", 
says  M.  Scherer,  "that  a  preface  should  sum  up 
the  doctrines  of  the  book.  But  suppose  the  book 
has  no  doctrines?  I  find  many  subjects  handled  in 
these  pages:  philosophy,  religion,  literature,  his 
tory,  politics,  morals  —  there  is  a  little  of  all  these. 
If,  indeed,  I  start  no  ideas  on  these  subjects,  I 
speak  of  men  who  have  done  so.  But  in  the  midst 
of  all  this  I  look  in  vain  for  the  least  sign  of  a 
doctrine.  Nay,  what  is  worse,  the  book  seems 
to  me  to  be  full  of  inconsistencies,  or,  as  some 
might  say,  of  contradictions.  I  find  myself  to-day 
all  latitude,  and  to-morrow  all  indignation;  now 
a  rigid  moralist,  now  a  disinterested  critic;  now 
tolerant  as  a  philosopher,  now  strenuous  as  a 
partizan."  To  the  critic  duly  reproached  with 
these  inconsistencies,  pursues  M.  Scherer,  there 

"Nouvelles   Etudes   sur   la   Litterature   Contemporaine." 
By  Edmond  Scherer.     Paris:  1865. 

99 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

remains  this  resource:  to  accept  the  reproach,  and 
to  reduce  it  to  its  proper  value.  This  M.  Scherer 
proceeds  to  do  in  his  own  case.  At  bottom,  he 
affirms,  rightly  understood,  no  serious  mind  ever 
contradicts  itself.  To  accuse  a  man  of  so  doing 
is  simply  to  display  covertly  your  own  ignorance. 
How  can  we  know  those  secret  reasons,  those 
blind  instincts,  those  confused  motives,  which  the 
subject  of  them  himself  only  half  suspects?  We 
think  that  a  man  has  changed  when  he  has  only 
pursued  or  achieved  his  natural  manifestation. 
There  are  in  the  tyranny  of  circumstances  and 
the  inherent  inflexibility  of  ideas  a  hundred 
obstacles  to  the  complete  expression  of  feelings. 
These  feelings,  which  constitute  a  man's  real 
substance,  his  inclinations,  his  affections,  his 
aspirations,  never  change.  The  nearest  approach 
they  make  to  it  is  to  develop  by  a  strictly  logical 
process.  In  default  of  doctrines  in  a  work  —  or, 
as  we  should  say,  in  default  of  a  system,  of  a  con 
sistent  argument  —  there  is  always,  accordingly, 
a  certain  irrepressible  moral  substance.  This 
moral  substance  in  his  own  work  M.  Scherer 
declares  to  be  the  love  of  liberty.  He  loves  lib 
erty  as  the  necessary  condition  of  truth,  of  thor 
ough  examination,  of  impartiality.  "Contention, 
written  and  spoken ",  says  M.  Scherer,  "the  op 
position  and  the  fusion  of  opinions,  errors,  re 
tractions,  excuses,  reactions:  all  these  things  are 
the  formation  of  truth."  And  these  things  are 
only  possible  under  liberty.  "Truth",  he  con- 

100 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

tinues,  "is  for  me  simply  improvement;  and  lib 
erty  is  scarcely  more  than  another  name  for  this 
constant  process  of  improvement." 

M.  Scherer's  merits,  then,  as  a  critic,  are  these: 
that  he  has  no  doctrines,  and  that  in  default  of 
these  he  is  prompted  by  as  excellent  a  feeling  as 
the  love  of  liberty.  It  may  seem  questionable  at 
first  whether  the  former  fact  is  really  a  merit.  It 
is  not  that  in  reading  M.  Scherer's  volume  we 
do  not  find  much  that  is  positive:  many  opinions, 
much  sympathy,  much  dissent,  much  philosophy, 
much  strong  feeling;  for  without  these  the  re 
proach  of  inconsistency  would  be  impossible.  We 
find  much  that  we  can  specifically  approve  or 
condemn.  We  find  even  plenty  of  theories.  But 
this  touches  perhaps  the  very  point.  There  are 
plenty  of  theories,  but  no  theory.  We  find  —  and 
this  is  the  highest  praise,  it  seems  to  us,  that  we 
can  give  a  critic  —  none  but  a  moral  unity:  that 
is,  the  author  is  a  liberal.  It  is  hard  to  say,  in 
reading  M.  Scherer's  books,  which  is  the  most 
pleasing  phenomenon,  this  intellectual  eclecticism 
or  this  moral  consistency.  The  age  surely  pre 
sents  no  finer  spectacle  than  that  of  a  mind  liberal 
after  this  fashion;  not  from  a  brutal  impatience  of 
order,  but  from  experience,  from  reflection,  seri 
ously,  intelligently,  having  known,  relished,  and 
appropriated  the  many  virtues  of  conservatism; 
a  mind  inquisitive  of  truth  and  of  knowledge, 
accessible  on  all  sides,  unprejudiced,  desirous 
above  all  things  to  examine  directly,  fearless  of 

101 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

reputed  errors,  but  merciless  to  error  when  proved, 
tolerant  of  dissent,  respectful  of  sincerity,  con 
tent  neither  to  reason  on  matters  of  feeling  nor  to 
sentimentalize  on  matters  of  reason,  equitable, 
dispassionate,  sympathetic.  M.  Scherer  is  a  solid 
embodiment  of  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold's  ideal  critic. 
Those  who  affirmed  Mr.  Arnold's  ideal  to  be  im 
practicable  may  here  be  refuted;  those  who 
thought  it  undesirable  may  perhaps  be  converted. 
For  they  will  see  that  once  granted  M.  Scherer's 
seriousness,  his  competency  to  the  treatment  of  a 
given  subject  rests  entirely  upon  his  intellectual 
independence  or  irresponsibility.  Of  all  men  who 
deal  with  ideas,  the  critic  is  essentially  the  least 
independent;  it  behooves  him,  therefore,  to  claim 
the  utmost  possible  incidental  or  extrinsic  freedom. 
His  subject  and  his  stand-point  are  limited  before 
hand.  He  is  in  the  nature  of  his  function  opposed 
to  his  author,  and  his  position,  therefore,  depends 
upon  that  which  his  author  has  taken.  If,  in 
addition  to  his  natural  and  proper  servitude  to 
his  subject,  he  is  shackled  with  a  further  servitude, 
outside  of  his  subject,  he  works  at  a  ridiculous  dis 
advantage.  This  outer  servitude  may  either  be  to 
a  principle,  a  theory,  a  doctrine,  a  dogma,  or  it 
may  be  to  a  party;  and  it  is  against  this  latter  form 
of  subordination,  as  most  frequent  in  his  own 
country,  that  Mr.  Arnold  more  especially  protests. 
But  as  a  critic,  quite  as  much  as  any  other  writer, 
must  have  what  M.  Scherer  calls  an  inspiration 
of  his  own,  must  possess  a  unit  of  sincerity  and 

102 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

consistency,  he  finds  it  in  his  conscience.  It  is  on 
this  basis  that  he  preserves  his  individuality,  or,  if 
you  like,  his  self-respect.  It  is  from  this  moral 
sense,  and,  we  may  add,  from  their  religious  con 
victions,  that  writers  like  Scherer  derive  that 
steadfast  and  delicate  spiritual  force  which  ani 
mates,  co-ordinates,  and  harmonizes  the  mass  of 
brief  opinions,  of  undeveloped  assertions,  of  con 
jectures,  of  fancies,  of  sentiments,  which  are  the 
substance  of  this  work. 

There  are,  of  course,  degrees  in  criticism  as  in 
everything  else.  There  is  small  criticism  and  there 
is  great  criticism.  But  great  criticism  seems  to  us 
to  touch  more  or  less  nearly  on  pure  philosophy. 
Pure  criticism  must  be  of  the  small  kind.  Goethe 
is  a  great  critic;  M.  Sainte-Beuve  is  a  small  one. 
Goethe  has  laid  down  general  principles.  M. 
Sainte-Beuve  has  laid  down  particular  principles; 
and,  above  all,  he  has  observed  facts  and  stated 
results.  Goethe  frequently  starts  from  an  idea; 
M.  Sainte-Beuve  starts  from  a  fact:  Goethe  from 
a  general  rule,  M.  Sainte-Beuve  from  a  particular 
instance.  When  we  reflect  upon  all  the  faculties 
and  all  the  accomplishments  needed  by  the  literary 
critic  in  these  days,  we  are  almost  tempted  to  say 
that  he  should  unite  in  himself  the  qualities  which 
are  required  for  success  in  every  other  department 
of  letters.  But  we  may  more  strictly  sum  up  his 
necessary  character  by  saying  that  he  is  a  com 
promise  between  the  philosopher  and  the  historian. 
We  spoke  of  M.  Sainte-Beuve,  who,  on  the  whole, 

103 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

may  be  called  the  first  of  living  critics.  He  is  a 
philosopher  in  so  far  as  that  he  deals  with  ideas. 
He  counts,  weighs,  measures,  appraises  them. 
But  he  is  not  a  philosopher  in  so  far  as  that  he 
works  with  no  supreme  object.  There  results 
from  his  work  no  deliberate  theory  of  life,  of 
nature,  of  the  universe.  He  is  not,  as  the  philoso 
pher  must  ever  be  more  or  less,  a  partizan.  When 
he  pulls  down,  it  lies  in  his  discretion  or  his  gen 
erosity  to  build  up  again;  whereas  the  philosopher 
is  for  ever  offering  the  better  in  exchange  for  the 
worse  —  that  which  is  more  true  in  exchange  for 
that  which  is  less.  The  philosopher's  function  is 
to  compare  a  work  with  an  abstract  principle  of 
truth;  the  critic's  is  to  compare  a  work  with  itself, 
with  its  own  concrete  standard  of  truth.  The 
critic  deals,  therefore,  with  parts,  the  philosopher 
with  wholes.  In  M.  Sainte-Beuve,  however,  it  is 
the  historian  who  is  most  generously  represented. 
As  a  critic,  he  bears  the  same  relation  to  facts  that 
he  does  to  ideas.  As  the  metaphysician  handles 
ideas  with  a  preconceived  theory,  so  the  historian 
handles  facts  with  a  preconcerted  plan.  But  with 
this  theory  or  this  plan,  the  critic  has  nothing  to 
do.  He  works  on  the  small  scale,  in  detail,  looking 
neither  before  him,  behind  him,  nor  on  either 
side.  Like  Mr.  Ruskin's  model  young  painter 
with  his  landscape,  M.  Sainte-Beuve  covers  up 
all  history  but  the  small  square  field  under  his 
eye.  On  this  field,  however,  he  works  with  pre- 
Raphaelite  minuteness;  he  exhausts  it.  Then  he 

104 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

shifts  his  window-frame,  as  we  may  call  it,  and 
begins  again.  The  essence  of  the  practicability 
of  history  is  in  a  constant  obedience  to  propor 
tion.  M.  Sainte-Beuve,  like  a  true  critic,  ignores 
proportion.  The  reunion  of  his  chapters,  there 
fore,  would  make  no  history,  any  more  than  the 
reunion  of  the  young  pre-Raphaelite's  studies 
would  make  a  picture. 

M.  Scherer 's  place  among  the  critics  of  the  time 
is  very  high.  If  M.  Sainte-Beuve  has  earned  the 
highest  place,  M.  Scherer  has  a  claim  to  the  next. 
For  ourselves,  we  prefer  M.  Scherer.  He  has  not 
M.  Sainte-Beuve's  unrivalled  power  of  reproducing 
the  physiognomy  of  a  particular  moment  as  of  a 
particular  figure  of  the  past;  he  cannot  pick  out 
some  obscure  secondary  figure  of  the  seventeenth 
century  —  some  forgotten  litterateur •,  some  mo 
mentary  king's  mistress  —  and  in  twenty  pages 
place  the  person  before  you  as  a  complete  human 
being,  to  be  for  ever  remembered,  with  a  distinct 
personality,  with  a  character,  an  expression,  a 
face,  a  dress,  habits,  eccentricities.  M.  Scherer, 
we  say,  has  not  done  this.  But  we  prefer  him 
because  his  morality  is  positive  without  being 
obtrusive;  and  because,  besides  the  distinction 
of  beauty  and  ugliness,  the  aesthetic  distinc 
tion  of  right  and  wrong,  there  constantly  oc 
curs  in  his  pages  the  moral  distinction  between 
good  and  evil;  because,  in  short,  we  salute 
in  this  fact  that  wisdom  which,  after  having 
made  the  journey  round  the  whole  sphere  of 

105 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

knowledge,  returns  at  last  with  a  melancholy  joy 
to  morality. 

If  we  have  a  complaint,  indeed,  to  make  of 
M.  Sainte-Beuve,  it  is  that  with  all  his  experience 
he  is  not  more  melancholy.  On  great  subjects, 
subjects  of  the  first  order,  M.  Scherer  is  as  efficient 
as  the  author  of  the  "Causeries  de  Lundi."  He 
has  judged  his  contemporaries  quite  as  keenly: 
witness  his  article  on  M.  Veuillot.  And  in  the 
volume  under  notice  are  two  papers,  one  on  Mme. 
de  Sevigne,  the  other  on  Mme.  Roland,  which  are 
delicate  with  all  M.  Sainte-Beuve's  delicacy,  and 
eloquent  with  more  than  his  eloquence.  If  we 
were  tempted  to  set  another  critic  before  M. 
Scherer,  that  critic  would  be  M.  Taine.  But  on 
reflection  we  conclude  that  M.  Taine  is  not  pre 
eminently  a  critic.  He  is  alternately  a  philosopher 
and  a  historian.  His  strong  point  is  not  to  dis 
criminate  shades  of  difference.  On  the  contrary, 
he  is  perpetually  sacrificing  shades  to  broad  lines. 
He  is  valuable  for  his  general  views,  his  broad 
retrospects,  his  resumes.  He  passes  indeed,  in 
cidentally,  very  shrewd  literary  judgments,  as 
when,  for  instance,  he  says  of  Swift's  poetry  that 
instead  of  creating  illusions  it  destroys  them.  But 
he  is  too  passionate,  too  partial,  too  eloquent. 
The  critic  is  useful  in  repairing  the  inevitable 
small  injustices  committed  by  other  writers;  in 
going  over  the  ground  after  them  and  restoring 
the  perverted  balance  of  truth.  Now  in  Taine's 
"History  of  English  Literature",  which  is  nomi- 

106 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

nally  a  critical  work,  there  is  in  each  chapter 
abundant  room  for  this  supplementary  process 
of  the  critic  proper.  In  the  work  of  M.  Scherer 
there  is  room  but  for  contradiction  —  which  is, 
in  fact,  a  forcible  making  of  room.  With  him, 
analysis  has  reached  its  furthest  limits,  and  it  is 
because  he  is  more  analytic  than  Mr.  Taine  — 
admitting,  as  we  do,  that  he  has  not  his  genius 
-  that  we  place  him  higher  as  a  critic.  Of  M. 
Scherer's  religious  character  we  have  not  explicitly 
spoken,  because  we  cannot  speak  of  it  properly  in 
these  limits.  We  can  only  say  that  in  religion,  as  in 
everything  else,  he  is  a  liberal;  and  we  can  pay  no 
higher  tribute  to  his  critical  worth  than  by  adding 
that  he  has  found  means  to  unite  the  keenest 
theological  penetration  and  the  widest  theological 
erudition  with  the  greatest  spiritual  tolerance. 


107 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 


XII 


TV/flSS  AURORA  FLOYD,  as  half  the  world 
^  •*•  knows,  was  a  young  lady  who  got  into  no 
end  of  trouble  by  marrying  her  father's  groom. 
We  had  supposed  that  this  adventure  had  long 
ago  become  an  old  story;  but  here  is  a  new  edition 
of  her  memoirs  to  prove  that  the  public  has  not 
done  with  her  yet.  We  would  assure  those  indi 
viduals  who  look  with  regret  upon  this  assump 
tion  by  a  "  sensation  "  novel  of  the  honors  of 
legitimate  fiction,  that  the  author  of  "Aurora 
Floyd"  is  an  uncommonly  clever  person.  Her 
/works  are  distinguished  by  a  quality  for  which  we 
I  can  find  no  better  name  than  "pluck";  and  should 
not  pluck  have  its  reward  wherever  found?  If 
common  report  is  correct,  Miss  Braddon  had  for 
many  years  beguiled  the  leisure  moments  of  an 
arduous  profession  —  the  dramatic  profession  - 
by  the  composition  of  fictitious  narrative.  But 
until  the  publication  of  "Lady  Audley's  Secret" 
she  failed  to  make  her  mark.  To  what  secret  im 
pulse  or  inspiration  we  owe  this  sudden  reversal 
of  fortune  it  is  difficult  to  say;  but  the  grim  de- 

"  Aurora  Floyd/'    By  M.  E.  Braddon.    New  York:  1865. 

108 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

termination  to  succeed  is  so  apparent  in  every 
line  of  "Lady  Audley's  Secret",  that  the  critic  is 
warranted  in  conjecturing  that  she  had  at  last 
become  desperate.  People  talk  of  novels  with  a 
purpose;  and  from  this  class  of  works,  both  by  her 
patrons  and  her  enemies,  Miss  Braddon's  tales 
are  excluded.  But  what  novel  ever  betrayed  a 
more  resolute  purpose  than  the  production  of 
what  we  may  call  Miss  Braddon's  second  manner?. 
Her  purpose  was  at  any  hazard  to  make  a  hit,  to  \ 
catch  the  public  ear.  It  was  a  difficult  task,  but 
audacity  could  accomplish  it.  Miss  Braddon  ac 
cordingly  resorted  to  extreme  measures,  and  ere-  . 
ated  the  sensation  novel.  It  is  to  this  audacity, 
this  courage  of  despair,  as  manifested  in  her  later 
works,  that  we  have  given  the  name  of  pluck.  In 
these  works  it  has  settled  down  into  a  quiet  de 
termination  not  to  let  her  public  get  ahead  of  her. 
A  writer  who  has  suddenly  leaped  into  a  popular 
ity  greatly  disproportionate  to  his  merit,  can  only 
retain  his  popularity  by  observing  a  strictly  re 
spectful  attitude  to  his  readers.  This  has  been 
Miss  Braddon's  attitude,  and  she  has  maintained 
it  with  unwearied  patience.  She  has  been  in  her 
way  a  disciple  as  well  as  a  teacher.  She  has  kept 
up  with  the  subtle  innovations  to  which  her  art, 
like  all  others,  is  subject,  as  well  as  with  the 
equally  delicate  fluctuations  of  the  public  taste. 
The  result  has  been  a  very  obvious  improvement 
in  her  style. 

She  had  been  preceded  in  the  same  path  by 
109 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

Mr.  Wilkie  Collins,  whose  "Woman  in  White", 
with  its  diaries  and  letters  and  its  general  ponder 
osity,  was  a  kind  of  nineteenth  century  version  of 
"Clarissa  Harlowe."  Mind,  we  say  a  nineteenth 
century  version.  To  Mr.  Collins  belongs  the 
credit  of  having  introduced  into  fiction  those  most 
mysterious  of  mysteries,  the  mysteries  which  are 
at  our  own  doors.  This  innovation  gave  a  new 
impetus  to  the  literature  of  horrors.  It  was  fatal 
to  the  authority  of  Mrs.  Radcliffe  and  her  ever 
lasting  castle  in  the  Apennines.  What  are  the 
Apennines  to  us,  or  we  to  the  Apennines?  Instead 
of  the  terrors  of  "Udolpho",  we  were  treated  to 
the  terrors  of  the  cheerful  country-house  and  the 
busy  London  lodgings.  And  there  is  no  doubt 
that  these  were  infinitely  the  more  terrible.  Mrs. 
Radcliffe's  mysteries  were  romances  pure  and 
simple;  while  those  of  Mr.  Wilkie  Collins  were 
stern  reality.  The  supernatural,  which  Mrs.  Rad 
cliffe  constantly  implies,  though  she  generally 
saves  her  conscience,  at  the  eleventh  hour,  by  ex 
plaining  it  away,  requires  a  powerful  imagination 
in  order  to  be  as  exciting  as  the  natural,  as  Mr. 
Collins  and  Miss  Braddon,  without  any  imagina 
tion  at  all,  know  how  to  manage  it.  A  good 
ghost-story,  to  be  half  as  terrible  as  a  good  mur 
der-story,  must  be  connected  at  a  hundred  points 
with  the  common  objects  of  life.  The  best  ghost- 
story  probably  ever  written  —  a  tale  published 
some  years  ago  in  Blackwood's  Magazine  —  was 
constructed  with  an  admirable  understanding  of 

no 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

this  principle.  Half  of  its  force  was  derived  from 
its  prosaic,  commonplace,  daylight  accessories. 
Less  delicately  terrible,  perhaps,  than  the  vagaries 
of  departed  spirits,  but  to  the  full  as  interesting,  as 
the  modern  novel  reader  understands  the  word, 
are  the  numberless  possible  forms  of  human  ma 
lignity.  Crime,  indeed,  has  always  been  a  theme 
for  dramatic  poets;  but  with  the  old  poets  its 
dramatic  interest  lay  in  the  fact  that  it  compro 
mised  the  criminal's  moral  repose.  Whence  else 
is  the  interest  of  Orestes  and  Macbeth?  With  Mr. 
Collins  and  Miss  Braddon  (our  modern  Euripides 
and  Shakespeare)  the  interest  of  crime  is  in  the 
fact  that  it  compromises  the  criminars  personal 
safety.  The  play  is  a  tragedy,  not  in  virtue  of  an 
avenging  deity,  but  in  virtue  of  a  preventive  sys 
tem  of  law;  not  through  the  presence  of  a  com 
pany  of  fairies,  but  through  that  of  an  admirable 
organization  of  police  detectives.  Of  course,  the 
nearer  the  criminal  and  the  detective  are  brought 
home  to  the  reader,  the  more  lively  his  "sensa 
tion."  They  are  brought  home  to  the  reader  by 
a  happy  choice  of  probable  circumstances;  and 
it  is  through  their  skill  in  the  choice  of  these  cir 
cumstances  —  their  thorough-going  realism  —  that 
Mr.  Collins  and  Miss  Braddon  have  become 
famous.  In  like  manner,  it  is  by  the  thorough 
going  realism  of  modern  actors  that  the  works  of 
the  most  poetic  of  poets  have  been  made  to  furnish 
precedent  for  sensational  writers.  There  are  no 
circumstances  in  "Macbeth",  as  you  read  it;  but 

in 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

as  you  see  it  played  by  Mr.  Charles  Kean  or  Mr. 
Booth  it  is  nothing  but  circumstances.  And  we 
may  here  remark,  in  parentheses,  that  if  the  actors 
of  a  past  generation  —  Garrick  and  Mrs.  Siddons 
-  left  with  their  contemporaries  so  profound  a 
conviction  of  their  greatness ,  it  is  probably  be 
cause,  like  the  great  dramatists  they  interpreted, 
they  were  ideal  and  poetic;  because  their  effort 
was  not  to  impress  but  to  express. 

We  have  said  that  although  Mr.  Collins  an 
ticipated  Miss  Braddon  in  the  work  of  devising 
domestic  mysteries  adapted  to  the  wants  of  a 
sternly  prosaic  age,  she  was  yet  the  founder  of 
the  sensation  novel.  Mr.  Collins's  productions 
deserve  a  more  respectable  name.  They  are 
massive  and  elaborate  constructions  —  monu 
ments  of  mosaic  work,  for  the  proper  mastery  of 
which  it  would  seem,  at  first,  that  an  index  and 
note-book  were  required.  They  are  not  so  much 
works  of  art  as  works  of  science.  To  read  "The 
Woman  in  White'',  requires  very  much  the  same 
intellectual  effort  as  to  read  Motley  or  Froude. 
We  may  say,  therefore,  that  Mr.  Collins  being  to 
Miss  Braddon  what  Richardson  is  to  Miss  Austen, 
we  date  the  novel  of  domestic  mystery  from  the 
former  lady,  for  the  same  reason  that  we  date  the 
novel  of  domestic  tranquillity  from  the  latter. 
Miss  Braddon  began  by  a  skilful  combination  of 
bigamy,  arson,  murder,  and  insanity.  These 
phenomena  are  all  represented  in  the  deeds  of 
Lady  Audley.  The  novelty  lay  in  the  heroine  be- 

112 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

ing,  not  a  picturesque  Italian  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  but  an  English  gentlewoman  of  the  cur 
rent  year,  familiar  with  the  use  of  the  railway  and 
the  telegraph.  The  intense  probability  of  the 
story  is  constantly  reiterated.  Modern  England 

-  the  England  of  to-day's  newspaper  —  crops  up 
at  every  step.    Of  course  Lady  Audley  is  a  non 
entity,  without  a  heart,  a  soul,  a  reason.     But 
what  we  may  call  the  small  change  for  these  facts 

-  her  eyes,  her  hair,  her  mouth,  her  dresses,  her 
bedroom  furniture,  her  little  words  and  deeds  - 
are   so   lavishly   bestowed    that   she   successfully 
maintains  a  kind  of  half  illusion.     Lady  Audley 
was  diabolically  wicked;  Aurora  Floyd,  her  suc 
cessor,  was  simply  foolish,  or  indiscreet,  or  indeli 
cate  —  or  anything  you  please  to  say  of  a  young 
lady  who  runs  off  with  a  hostler.     But  as  bigamy 
had  been  the  cause  of  Lady  Audley's  crimes,  so  it 
is  the  cause  of  Aurora's  woes.    She  marries  a  sec 
ond  time,  on  the  hypothesis  of  the  death  of  the 
hostler.    But,  to  paraphrase  a  sentence  of  Thack 
eray's  in  a  sketch  of  the  projected  plot  of  "Denis 
Duval",  suppose,  after  all,  it  should  turn  out  that 
the  hostler  was  not  dead?     In  "Aurora  Floyd" 
the  small  change  is  more  abundant   than  ever. 
Aurora's    hair,    in    particular,    alternately    blue- 
black,  purple-black,  and  dead-black,  is  made  to 
go  a  great  way.     Since   "Aurora   Floyd",   Miss 
Braddon  has  published  half-a-dozen  more  novels; 
each,  as  we  have  intimated,  better  than  the  pre 
vious  one,  and  running   through  more  editions; 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

but  each  fundamentally  a  repetition  of  "Aurora 
Floyd."  These  works  are  censured  and  ridiculed, 
but  they  are  extensively  read.  The  author  has  a 
hold  upon  the  public.  It  is,  assuredly,  worth  our 
while  to  enquire  more  particularly  how  she  has 
obtained  it. 

The  great  public,  in  the  first  place,  is  made  up 
of  a  vast  number  of  little  publics,  very  much  as 
our  Union  is  made  up  of  States,  and  it  is  necessary 
to  consider  which  of  these  publics  is  Miss  Brad- 
don's.  We  can  best  define  it  with  the  half  of  a 
negative.  It  is  that  public  which  reads  nothing 
but  novels,  and  yet  which  reads  neither  George 
Eliot,  George  Sand,  Thackeray,  nor  Hawthorne. 
People  who  read  nothing  but  novels  are  very  poor 
critics  of  human  nature.  Their  foremost  desire 
is  for  something  new.  J  Now,  we  all  know  that 
human  nature  is  very  nearly  as  old  as  the  hills. 
But  society  is  for  ever  renewing  itself.  To  society, 
accordingly,  and  not  to  life,  Miss  Braddon  turns, 
and  produces,  not  stories  of  passion,  but  stories  of 
action.  Society  is  a  vast  magazine  of  crime  and 
suffering,  of  enormities,  mysteries,  and  miseries  of 
every  description,  of  incidents,  in  a  word.  In  pro 
portion  as  an  incident  is  exceptional,  it  is  interest 
ing  to  persons  in  search  of  novelty.  Bigamy, 
murder,  and  arson  are  exceptional.  Miss  Brad 
don  distributes  these  materials  with  a  generous 
hand,  and  attracts  the  attention  of  her  public. 
The  next  step  is  to  hold  its  attention.  There  have 
been  plenty  of  tales  of  crime  which  have  not 

114 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

made  their  authors  famous,  nor  put  money  in 
their  purses.  The  reason  can  have  been  only  that 
they  were  not  well  executed.  Miss  Braddon,  ac 
cordingly,  goes  to  work  like  an  artist.  Let  not 
the  curious  public  take  for  granted  that,  from  a 
literary  point  of  view,  her  works  are  contemptible. 
Miss  Braddon  writes  neither  fine  English  nor 
slovenly  English;  not  she.  She  writes  what  we 
may  call  very  knowing  English.  If  her  readers 
have  not  read  George  Eliot  and  Thackeray  and  all 
the  great  authorities,  she  assuredly  has,  and,  like 
every  one  else,  she  is  the  better  for  it.  With  a 
telling  subject  and  a  knowing  style  she  proceeds 
to  get  up  her  photograph.  These  require  shrewd 
observation  and  wide  experience;  Miss  Braddon 
has  both.  Like  all  women,  she  has  a  turn  for  color; 
she  knows  how  to  paint.  She  overloads  her  can 
vas  with  detail.  It  is  the  peculiar  character  of 
these  details  that  constitute  her  chief  force.  They 
betray  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  that  dis 
orderly  half  of  society  which  becomes  every  day 
a  greater  object  of  interest  to  the  orderly  half. 
They  intimate  that,  to  use  an  irresistible  vulgar 
ism,  Miss  Braddon  "has  been  there."  The  novel 
ist  who  interprets  the  illegitimate  world  to  the 
legitimate  world,  commands  from  the  nature  of 
his  position  a  certain  popularity.  Miss  Braddon 
deals  familiarly  with  gamblers,  and  betting-men, 
and  flashy  reprobates  of  every  description.  -  She 
knows  much  that  ladies  are  not  accustomed  to 
know,  but  that  they  are  apparently  very  glad  to 

"5 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

learn.  The  names  of  drinks,  the  technicalities  of 
the  faro-table,  the  lingo  of  the  turf,  the  talk  nat 
ural  to  a  crowd  of  fast  men  at  supper,  when  there 
are  no  ladies  present  but  Miss  Braddon,  the  way 
one  gentleman  knocks  another  down  —  all  these 
things  —  the  exact  local  coloring  of  Bohemia  — 
our  sisters  and  daughters  may  learn  from  these 
works.  These  things  are  the  incidents  of  vice; 
and  vice,  as  is  well  known,  even  modern,  civilized, 
elegant,  prosaic  vice,  has  its  romance.  Of  this 
romance  Miss  Braddon  has  taken  advantage,  and 
the  secret  of  her  success  is,  simply,  that  she  has 
done  her  work  better  than  her  predecessors. 
That  is,  she  has  done  it  with  a  woman's  finesse 
and  a  strict  regard  to  morality.  If  one  of  her 
heroines  elopes  with  a  handsome  stable-boy,  she 
saves  the  proprieties  by  marrying  him.  This  may 
be  indecent  if  you  like,  but  it  is  not  immoral.  If 
another  of  her  heroines  is  ever  tempted,  she  re 
sists.  With  people  who  are  not  particular,  there 
fore,  as  to  the  moral  delicacy  of  their  author,  or 
as  to  their  intellectual  strength,  Miss  Braddon  is 
very  naturally  a  favorite. 


116 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 


XIII 

Sugenie  de  Cjuerin*  s  yournal 

TF  Mademoiselle  de  Guerin,  transcribing  from 
*  the  fulness  of  her  affection  and  her  piety  her 
daily  record  of  one  of  the  quietest  lives  that  ever 
was  led  by  one  who  had  not  formally  renounced 
the  world,  could  have  foreseen  that  within  a  few 
years  after  her  death,  her  love,  her  piety,  her 
character,  her  daily  habits,  her  household  cares, 
her  inmost  and  freest  thoughts,  were  to  be  weighed 
and  measured  by  half  the  literary  critics  of  Europe 
and  America,  she  would,  doubtless,  have  found 
in  this  fact  a  miracle  more  wonderful  than  any 
of  those  to  which,  in  the  lives  of  her  favorite 
saints,  she  accorded  so  gracious  a  belief.  The  his 
tory  of  a  man  or  woman  of  genius  prolongs  itself 
after  death;  and  one  of  the  most  pleasing  facts 
with  regard  to  that  of  Mile,  de  Guerin  is  that  it 
was  her  fate  to  know  nothing  of  her  fame.  One 
of  the  most  unselfish  of  women,  she  was  spared 
the  experience  of  that  publicity  which  was  the 
inevitable  result  of  her  talents.  Genius  is  not 
a  private  fact:  sooner  or  later,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  it  becomes  common  property.  Mile,  de 

"The  Journal  of  Eugenie  de  Guerin."    By  G.  S.  Trebutien. 
London:  1865. 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

Guerin  pays  from  her  present  eminence  the  pen 
alty  of  her  admirable  faculties.  If  there  be  in 
the  seclusion,  the  modesty,  the  cheerful  obscurity 
and  humility  of  her  life,  an  essential  incongruity 
with  the  broad  light  of  actual  criticism,  we  may 
console  ourselves  with  the  reflection  that,  in  so 
far  as  it  might,  fortune  has  dealt  with  her  in  her 
own  spirit.  It  has  respected  her  noble  uncon 
sciousness.  Her  life  and  her  fame  stand  apart. 
Between  her  own  enjoyment  of  the  work  and  the 
world's  enjoyment  of  it  intervenes  that  fact  of 
her  death  which  completes  the  one  and  excuses 
the  other. 

Our  own  excuse  for  speaking  of  Mile,  de  Guerin 
at  this  somewhat  late  day  lies  in  the  recent  issue 
of  an  English  translation  of  her  journal.  This 
translation  is  apparently  as  good  as  it  was  likely 
to  be.  In  the  matter  of  style,  it  is  our  opinion 
that  Mile,  de  Guerin  loses  as  much  by  translation 
as  her  great  countrywoman,  Mme.  de  Sevigne; 
and  as  it  is  for  her  style  especially  that  we  per 
sonally  value  Mile,  de  Guerin,  we  cannot  but 
think  that  an  English  version  of  her  feelings 
would  fail,  in  a  very  important  particular,  to  rep 
resent  her  —  her  journal  being,  indeed,  nothing 
more  than  a  tissue  of  feelings,  woven  as  simply, 
as  easily,  as  closely,  as  rapidly,  with  the  same  in 
terrupted  continuity,  as  a  piece  of  fireside  knitting- 
work.  It  is  probable,  nevertheless,  that  the  book 
will  prove  acceptable  from  its  character  of  piety; 
and  for  those  who  are  not  acquainted  with  the 

118 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

original,  it  may  even,  through  the  translator's  faith 
ful  sympathy,  possess  a  certain  literary  charm. 

Mile,  de  Guerin's  journal  begins  in  1834,  when 
she  was  twenty-nine  years  of  age,  and  ceases  in 
1840.  It  was  strictly  a  series  of  daily  letters  ad 
dressed  to  her  brother  Maurice,  and  consigned  to 
a  number  of  blank-books,  which  he  read  when 
each  was  filled.  It  may  be  divided  into  two  parts: 
the  first,  covering  less  than  five  years,  extending 
to  the  death  of  Maurice  de  Guerin;  and  the  second, 
covering  a  year  and  a  half,  extending  from  this 
event  to  what  we  may  almost  call  the  real  death 
of  Mile,  de  Guerin  herself —  that  is,  the  cessation 
of  that  practice  of  daily  communion  with  her 
brother  which  had  so  long  absorbed  her  most 
lively  energies.  She  actually  survived  her  brother 
nine  years,  a  period  of  which  she  has  left  us  only 
that  beginning  of  a  record  formed  by  those  few 
pages  of  her  journal  which  she  has  inscribed  to 
his  departed  soul.  Her  admirers  will  hardly  re 
gret  the  absence  of  a  more  extended  chronicle  of 
these  weary  years.  Mile,  de  Guerin's  thoughts 
had  always  been  half  for  heaven  and  half  for 
Maurice.  When  Maurice  died  they  reverted,  by 
a  pious  compromise,  to  heaven  alone,  and  as 
sumed  an  almost  painful  monotony. 

The  chief  figure  in  Mile,  de  Guerin's  life,  ac 
cordingly,  is  not  her  own,  but  that  of  her  brother. 
He,  too,  has  become  famous;  he,  too,  had  his 
genius.  The  sisterly  devotion  expressed  and  im 
plied  in  every  line  of  Mile,  de  Guerin's  writing 

119 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

needs,  indeed,  no  such  fact  as  this  to  explain  it. 
She  was  nothing  of  a  critic;  and  for  the  readers 
of  the  journal  alone,  the  simple  presumption  that 
Maurice  de  Guerin  was  a  lovable  man  is  sufficient 
to  account  for  his  supremacy  in  the  life  of  a  woman 
who  lived  exclusively  in  her  natural  affections. 
For  her,  then,  he  was  simply  the  dearest  of  her 
brothers;  for  us,  if  we  had  the  space,  he  would  be 
a  most  interesting  object  of  study.  But  we  can 
spare  him  but  a  few  words.  He  was  by  several 
years  Eugenie's  junior.  Sent  to  school  at  a  dis 
tance  at  an  early  age,  and  compelled  subsequently 
to  earn  his  living  in  Paris  by  teaching  and  writing, 
his  life  was  passed  in  comparative  solitude,  and 
his  relations  with  his  family  maintained  by  letters. 
His  first  plan  had  been  to  enter  the  church,  and 
with  this  view  he  had  attached  himself  to  a  small 
community  of  theological  students  organized  and 
governed  by  Lamennais.  The  dispersion  of  this 
community,  however,  arrested  and  diverted  his 
ecclesiastical  aspirations;  and  if  he  never  thor 
oughly  abandoned  himself  to  the  world  as  it 
stands  opposed  to  the  church,  his  habitual  se 
clusion  and  temperance  are  marked  by  a  strictly 
secular  tone.  After  several  years  of  Paris  drudg 
ery  he  contracted  a  marriage  with  a  young  girl 
of  some  fortune.  He  died  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
eight.  To  ourselves,  Maurice  de  Guerin  is  a  more 
interesting  person  than  his  sister.  We  cannot, 
indeed,  help  regarding  the  collection  recently 
made  of  his  letters  and  literary  remains  as  a  most 

120 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

valuable  contribution  to  our  knowledge  of  the 
human  mind.  What  he  would  have  accomplished 
if  time  had  been  more  generous  towards  him,  it  is 
difficult  to  say;  but  as  it  is,  little  can  be  claimed 
for  him  on  the  ground  of  his  positive  achievements. 
To  say  that  he  is  chiefly  interesting  as  a  phenome 
non  seems  but  a  cold  way  of  looking  at  one  who, 
in  all  that  we  know  of  his  character,  inspires  us 
with  the  most  tender  affection;  and  yet  so  it  is 
that  we  are  tempted  to  speak  of  Maurice  de 
Guerin.  So  i t_is_that Jge  are  led  to  look  at  every 
man  who  is  deficient  in  will.  This  was  the  case 
with  Guerin.  His  letters,  his  diary,  his  verses, 
are  one  long  record-of  moral  impotency.  He  was 
one  of  the  saddest  of  men.  That  he  had  genius, 
we  think  his  little  prose-poem,  entitled  "The 
Centaur",  conclusively  proves;  not  a  splendid,  a 
far-reaching  genius,  but  nevertheless  a  source  of 
inspiration  which  was  all  his  own.  His  sensibility, 
his  perceptions,  were  of  the  deepest.  He  put 
imagination  into  everything  that  he  said  or  wrote. 
He  has  left  descriptions  of  nature  which  have 
probably  never  been  excelled,  because,  probably, 
nature  has  never  been  more  delicately  perceived. 
And  yet  we  may  be  sure  that  for  posterity  he  will 
live  rather  in  his  sister  than  in  himself.  For  he 
is  essentially  an  imperfect  figure;  and  what  the 
present  asks  of  the  past  is  before  all  things  com 
pleteness.  A  man  is  only  remembered  beyond 
his  own  generation  by  his  results;  and  the  most 
that  Guerin  has  left  us  is  a  heritage  of  processes. 

121 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

If  he  had  lived  and  grown  great,  we  should 
assuredly  be  delighted  to  peruse  the  record  of 
his  moral  and  religious  tatonnements.  But  as  his 
whole  life  was  but  a  fragment,  his  fragmentary 
efforts  lack  that  character  of  unity  which  is 
essential  to  whomsoever,  in  morals  or  in  letters, 
is  destined  to  become  anything  of  a  classic. 
Maurice  de  Guerin's  only  unity  is  in  his  sister. 

The  singular  unity  of  her  own  genius,  indeed, 
is  such  as  almost  to  qualify  her  for  this  distinc 
tion.  As  her  brother  was  all  complexity,  she  was 
all  simplicity.  As  he  was  all  doubt,  she  was  all 
faith.  It  seems  to  us  that  we  shall  place  Mile,  de 
Guerin  on  her  proper  footing,  and  obviate  much 
possible  misconception,  if  we  say  that  hers  was  an 
essentially^fo/te  nature.  We  just  now  mentioned 
Mme.  de  Sevigne.  The  great  charm  of  Mme.  de 
Sevigne's  style  is  her  perfect  ability  to  say  what 
ever  she  pleases.  But  as  she  was  chiefly  an  ob 
server  of  fashionable  society,  she  was  not  often 
tempted  to  utter  very  composite  truths.  Now, 
Mile,  de  Guerin,  perpetually  engaged  in  the  con 
templation  of  the  Divine  goodness,  finds  the 
right  word  and  the  right  phrase  with  the  same  de 
lightful  ease  as  her  great  predecessor.  With  her, 
as  with  Mme.  de  Sevigne,  style  was  a  natural 
gift.  Many  of  the  causes  of  this  perfection  are 
doubtless  identical  in  both  cases.  Both  Mme.  de 
Sevigne  and  Mile,  de  Guerin  were  women  of  taste 
and  of  tact,  who,  under  these  conditions,  wrote 
from  the  heart.  They  wrote  freely  and  familiarly, 

122 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

without  any  pre-occupation  whatever.  They 
were  both  women  of  birth,  both  ladies  as  we  say 
now-a-days.  To  both  of  them  there  clings  an  air 
of  purely  natural  distinction,  of  implicit  subor 
dination  to  the  fact  of  race,  a  silent  sense  of  re 
sponsibility  to  the  past,  which  goes  far  to  explain 
the  positive  character  of  their  style.  When  we 
add  to  this  that  in  both  of  them  the  imaginative 
faculty  was  singularly  limited,  we  shall  have  in 
dicated  those  features  which  they  possessed  in 
common,  and  shall  have  helped  to  confirm  our 
assertion  of  the  finite  quality  of  Mile,  de  Guerin's 
mind.  It  was  not  that  she  was  without  imagina 
tion;  on  the  contrary,  she  unmistakably  pos 
sessed  it;  but  she  possessed  it  in  very  small 
measure.  Religion  without  imagination  is  piety; 
and  such  is  Mile,  de  Guerin's  religion.  Her  journal, 
taken  as  a  whole,  seems  to  us  to  express  a  profound 
contentment.  She  was,  indeed,  in  a  certain  sense, 
impatient  of  life,  but  with  no  stronger  impatience 
than  such  as  the  church  was  able  to  allay.  She 
had,  of  course,  her  moments  of  discouragement; 
but,  on  the  whole,  she  found  it  easy  to  believe, 
and  she  was  too  implicit  a  believer  to  be  unhappy. 
Her  peculiar  merit  is  that,  without  exaltation, 
enthusiasm,  or  ecstacy,  quietly,  steadily,  and 
naturally,  she  entertained  the  idea  of  the  Divine 
goodness.  The  truth  is  that  she  was  strong.  She 
was  a  woman  of  character.  Thoroughly  depend 
ent  on  the  church,  she  was  independent  of  every 
thing  else. 

123 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 


XIV 

The  Helton  Estate 

T  TEREj  in  the  natural  order  of  events,  is  a  new 
•*•  •*•  novel  by  Mr.  Trollope.  This  time  it  is  Miss 
Clara  Amedroz  who  is  agitated  by  conflicting 
thoughts.  Like  most  of  Mr.  Trollope's  recent 
heroines,  she  is  no  longer  in  the  first  blush  of 
youth;  and  her  story,  like  most  of  Mr.  Trollope's 
recent  stories,  is  that  of  a  woman  standing  ir 
resolute  between  a  better  lover  and  a  worse.  She 
first  rejects  the  better  for  the  worse,  and  then  re 
jects  the  worse  for  the  better.  This  latter  move 
ment  is  final,  and  Captain  Aylmer,  like  Crosbie, 
in  "The  Small  House  at  Allington",  has  to  put 
up  with  a  red-nosed  Lady  Emily.  The  reader  will 
surmise  that  we  are  not  in  "The  Bel  ton  Estate" 
introduced  to  very  new  ground.  The  book  is, 
nevertheless,  to  our  mind,  more  readable  than 
many  of  its  predecessors.  It  is  comparatively 
short,  and  has  the  advantage  of  being  a  single 
story,  unencumbered  by  any  subordinate  or  co 
ordinate  plot.  The  interest  of  Mr.  Trollope's 
main  narrative  is  usually  so  far  from  being  in 
tense  that  repeated  interruption  on  behalf  of  the 

"The  Belton  Estate."     By  Anthony  Trollope.     Philadel 
phia  :  1866. 

I24 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

actors  charged  with  the  more  strictly  humorous 
business  is  often  very  near  proving  altogether 
fatal.  To  become  involved  in  one  of  his  love 
stories  is  very  like  sinking  into  a  gentle  slumber; 
and  it  is  well  known  that  when  you  are  aroused 
from  your  slumber  to  see  something  which  your 
well-meaning  intruder  considers  very  entertain 
ing,  it  is  a  difficult  matter  to  woo  it  back  again. 
In  the  tale  before  us  we  slumber  on  gently  to  the 
end.  There  is  no  heroine  but  Miss  Clara  Amedroz, 
and  no  heroes  but  her  two  suitors.  The  lady  loves 
amiss,  but  discovers  it  in  time,  and  invests  her 
affections  more  safely.  Such,  in  strictness,  is  the 
substance  of  the  tale;  but  it  is  filled  out  as  Mr. 
Trollope  alone  knows  how  to  fill  out  the  primitive 
meagreness  of  his  dramatic  skeletons.  The  three 
persons  whom  we  have  mentioned  are  each  a 
character  in  a  way,  and  their  sayings  and  doings, 
their  comings  and  goings,  are  registered  to  the 
letter  and  timed  to  the  minute.  They  write  a 
number  of  letters,  which  are  duly  transcribed; 
they  make  frequent  railway  journeys  by  the 
down-train  from  London;  they  have  cups  of  tea 
in  their  bedrooms;  and  they  do,  in  short,  in  the 
novel  very  much  as  the  reader  is  doing  out  of  it. 
We  do  not  make  these  remarks  in  a  tone  of  com 
plaint.  Mr.  Trollope  has  been  long  enough  before 
the  public  to  have  enabled  it  to  take  his  measure. 
We  do  not  open  his  books  with  the  expectation  of 
being  thrilled,  or  convinced,  or  deeply  moved  in 
any  way,  and,  accordingly,  when  we  find  one  to 

125 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

be  as  flat  as  a  Dutch  landscape,  we  remind  our 
selves  that  we  have  wittingly  travelled  into  Hol 
land,  and  that  we  have  no  right  to  abuse  the 
scenery  for  being  in  character.  We  reflect,  more 
over,  that  there  are  a  vast  number  of  excellent 
Dutchmen  for  whom  this  low-lying  horizon  has 
infinite  charms.  If  we  are  passionate  and  egotis 
tical,  we  turn  our  back  upon  them  for  a  nation  of 
irreclaimable  dullards;  but  if  we  are  critical  and 
disinterested,  we  endeavor  to  view  the  prospect 
from  a  Dutch  stand-point. 

Looking  at  "The  Bel  ton  Estate",  then,  from 
Mr.  Trollope's  own  point  of  view,  it  is  a  very 
pleasing  tale.  It  contains  not  a  word  against 
nature.  It  relates,  with  great  knowledge,  humor, 
and  grace  of  style,  the  history  of  the  affections  of 
a  charming  young  lady.  No  unlawful  devices  are 
resorted  to  in  order  to  interest  us.  People  and 
things  are  painted  as  they  stand.  Miss  Clara 
Amedroz  is  charming  only  as  two-thirds  of  her 
sex  are  charming  —  by  the  sweetness  of  her  face 
and  figure,  the  propriety  of  her  manners,  and  the 
amiability  of  her  disposition.  Represented  thus, 
without  perversion  or  exaggeration,  she  engages 
our  sympathy  as  one  whom  we  can  understand, 
from  having  known  a  hundred  women  exactly 
like  her.  Will  Belton,  the  lover  whom  she  finally 
accepts,  is  still  more  vividly  natural.  Even  the 
critic,  who  judges  the  book  strictly  from  a  reader's 
stand-point,  must  admit  that  Mr.  Trollope  has 
drawn  few  better  figures  than  this,  or  even  (what 

126 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

is  more  to  the  purpose)  that,  as  a  representation, 
he  is  an  approach  to  ideal  excellence.  The  author 
understands  him  well  in  the  life,  and  the  reader 
understands  him  well  in  the  book.  As  soon  as  he 
begins  to  talk  we  begin  to  know  and  to  like  him, 
as  we  know  and  like  such  men  in  the  flesh  after 
half  an  hour  of  their  society.  It  is  true  that  for 
many  of  us  half  an  hour  of  their  society  is  suffi 
cient,  and  that  here  Will  Belton  is  kept  before  us 
for  days  and  weeks.  No  better  reason  for  this  is 
needed  than  the  presumption  that  the  author 
does  not  tire  of  such  men  so  rapidly  as  we:  men 
healthy,  hearty,  and  shrewd,  but  men,  as  we  take 
the  liberty  of  declaring,  utterly  without  mind. 
Mr.  Trollope  is  simply  unable  to  depict  a  mind  in 
any  liberal  sense  of  the  word.  He  tried  it  in  John 
Grey  in  "Can  You  Forgive  Her?"  but  most 
readers  will  agree  that  he  failed  to  express  very 
vividly  this  gentleman's  scholarly  intelligence. 
Will  Belton  is  an  enterprising  young  squire,  with 
a  head  large  enough  for  a  hundred  prejudices,  but 
too  small  for  a  single  opinion,  and  a  heart  com 
petent  —  on  the  condition,  however,  as  it  seems 
to  us,  of  considerable  generous  self-contraction  on 
her  part  —  to  embrace  Miss  Amedroz. 

The  other  lover,  Captain  Aylmer,  is  not  as  suc 
cessful  a  figure  as  his  rival,  but  he  is  yet  a  very 
fair  likeness  of  a  man  who  probably  abounds  in 
the  ranks  of  that  society  from  which  Mr.  Trollope 
recruits  his  characters,  and  who  occurs,  we  ven 
ture  to  believe,  in  that  society  alone.  Not  that 

127 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

there  are  not  in  all  the  walks  of  life  weak  and 
passionless  men  who  allow  their  mothers  to  bully 
their  affianced  wives,  and  who  are  utterly  incom 
petent  to  entertain  an  idea.  But  in  no  other 
society  than  that  to  which  Captain  Aylmer  be 
longs  do  such  frigidity  and  such  stupidity  stand 
so  little  in  the  way  of  social  success.  They  seem 
in  his  case,  indeed,  to  be  a  passport  to  it.  His 
prospects  depend  upon  his  being  respectable,  and 
his  being  respectable  depends,  apparently,  on  his 
being  contemptible.  We  do  not  suppose,  how 
ever,  that  Mr.  Trollope  likes  him  any  better  than 
we.  In  fact,  Mr.  Trollope  never  fails  to  betray 
his  antipathy  for  mean  people  and  mean  actions. 
And  antipathetic  to  his  tastes  as  is  Captain  Ayl- 
mer's  nature,  it  is  the  more  creditable  to  him  that 
he  has  described  it  so  coolly,  critically,  and  tem 
perately.  Mr.  Trollope  is  never  guilty  of  an  excess 
in  any  direction,  and  the  vice  of  his  villain  is  of 
so  mild  a  quality  that  it  is  powerless  to  prejudice 
him  against  his  even  milder  virtues.  These  seem 
to  us  insufficient  to  account  for  Clara's  passion, 
for  we  are  bound  to  believe  that  for  her  it  was  a 
passion.  As  far  as  the  reader  sees,  Captain  Aylmer 
has  done  nothing  to  excite  it  and  everything  to 
quench  it,  and,  indeed,  we  are  quite  taken  by  sur 
prise  when,  after  her  aunt's  death,  she  answers 
his  proposal  with  so  emphatic  an  affirmative.  It 
is  a  pleasant  surprise,  however,  to  find  any  of 
Mr.  Trollope's  people  doing  a  thing  contrary  to 
common-sense.  Nothing  can  be  better  —  always 

128 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

from  the  Dutch  point  of  view  —  than  the  man 
agement  of  the  reaction  in  both  parties  against 
their  engagement;  but  to  base  the  rupture  of  a 
marriage  engagement  upon  an  indisposition  on 
the  part  of  the  gentleman's  mother  that  the  lady 
shall  maintain  an  acquaintance  of  long  standing 
with  another  lady  whose  past  history  is  discovered 
to  offer  a  certain  little  vantage-point  for  scandal, 
is,  even  from  the  Dutch  point  of  view,  an  unwar 
rantable  piece  of  puerility.  But  the  shabbiness  of 
grand  society  —  and  especially  the  secret  mean 
nesses,  parsimonies,  and  cruelties  of  the  exemplary 
British  matron  —  have  as  great  an  attraction  for 
Mr.  Trollope  as  they  had  for  Thackeray;  and  the 
account  of  Clara's  visit  to  the  home  of  her  in 
tended,  the  description  of  the  magnificent  bully 
ing  of  Lady  Aylmer,  and  the  picture  of  Miss 
Aylmer  -  "as  ignorant,  weak,  and  stupid  a  poor 
woman  as  you  shall  find  anywhere  in  Europe"  — 
make  a  sketch  almost  as  relentless  as  the  satire  of 
"Vanity  Fair"  or  the  "Newcomes."  There  are 
several  other  passages  equally  clever,  notably  the 
chapter  in  which  Belton  delivers  up  Miss  Amedroz 
to  her  lover's  care  at  the  hotel  in  London;  and  in 
which,  secure  in  his  expression  elsewhere  of  Bel- 
ton's  superiority  to  Aylmer,  the  author  feels  that 
he  can  afford  to  make  him  still  more  delicately 
natural  than  he  has  made  him  already  by  con 
trasting  him,  pro  tempore,  very  disadvantageously 
with  his  rival,  and  causing  him  to  lose  his  temper 
and  make  a  fool  of  himself. 

129 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

Such  praise  as  this  we  may  freely  bestow  on  the 
work  before  us,  because,  qualified  by  the  impor 
tant  stricture  which  we  have  kept  in  reserve,  we 
feel  that  it  will  not  seem  excessive.  Our  great  ob 
jection  to  "The  Belton  Estate"  is  that,  as  we 
read  it,  we  seemed  to  be  reading  a  work  written 
for  children;  a  work  prepared  for  minds  unable  to 
think;  a  work  below  the  apprehension  of  the  aver 
age  man  and  woman,  or,  at  the  very  most,  on  a 
level  with  it,  and  in  no  particular  above  it.  "The 
Belton  Estate'*  is  a  stupid  book;  and  in  a  much 
deeper  sense  than  that  of  being  simply  dull,  for  a 
dull  book  is  always  a  book  that  might  have  been 
lively.  A  dull  book  is  a  failure.  Mr.  Trollope's 
story  is  stupid  and  a  success.  It  is  essentially, 
organically,  consistently  stupid;  stupid  in  direct 
proportion  to  its  strength.  It  is  without  a  single 
idea.  It  is  utterly  incompetent  to  the  primary 
functions  of  a  book,  of  whatever  nature,  namely 
-  to  suggest  thought.  In  a  certain  way,  indeed, 
it  suggests  thought;  but  this  is  only  on  the  ruins 
of  its  own  existence  as  a  book.  It  acts  as  the  occa 
sion,  not  as  the  cause,  of  thought.  It  indicates 
the  manner  in  which  a  novel  should  not,  on  any 
account,  be  written.  That  it  should  deal  exclu 
sively  with  dull,  flat,  commonplace  people  was  to 
be  expected;  and  this  need  not  be  a  fault;  but  it 
deals  with  such  people  as  one  of  themselves;  and 
this  is  what  Lady  Aylmer  would  call  a  "damning" 
fault.  Mr.  Trollope  is  a  good  observer;  but  he  is 
literally  nothing  else.  He  is  apparently  as  incap- 

130 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

able  of  disengaging  an  idea  as  of  drawing  an  in 
ference.  All  his  incidents  are,  if  we  may  so  express 
it,  empirical.  He  has  seen  and  heard  every  act 
and  every  speech  that  appears  in  his  pages.  That 
minds  like  his  should  exist,  and  exist  in  plenty,  is 
neither  to  be  wondered  at  nor  to  be  deplored;  but 
that  such  a  mind  as  his  should  devote  itself  to 
writing  novels,  and  that  these  novels  should  be 
successful,  appears  to  us  an  extraordinary  fact. 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 


XV 

Swinburne's  "£hastelard" 

"/^HASTELARD"  is  not  destined,  in  our 
^^  judgment,  to  add  to  the  reputation  of  the 
author  of  "Atalanta  in  Calydon."  It  has  been 
said  —  we  know  not  on  what  authority  —  that 
it  is  an  early  production,  which  the  author  was 
encouraged  to  publish  by  the  success  of  the  latter 
work.  On  perusal,  this  rumor  becomes  easily 
credible.  "Chastelard"  bears  many  signs  of 
immaturity.  The  subject,  indeed,  is  one  which  a 
man  might  select  at  any  age;  but  the  treatment  of 
it,  as  it  seems  to  us,  is  that  of  a  man  still  young. 
The  subject  is  one  of  the  numerous  flirtations  of 
Queen  Mary  of  Scotland,  which  makes,  like  so 
many  of  the  rest,  a  very  good  theme  for  a  tragedy. 
A  drama  involving  this  remarkable  woman  has, 
by  the  fact  of  her  presence  alone,  a  strong  chance 
of  success.  The  play  or  the  novel  is  half  made  by 
the  simple  use  of  her  name.  Her  figure  has  been 
repeatedly  used,  and  it  is  likely  it  will  continue  to 
be  used  for  a  long  time  to  come;  for  it  adapts  itself 
to  the  most  diverse  modes  of  treatment.  In 
poetry,  after  all,  the  great  point  is  that  the  objects 

"Chastelard:   A  Tragedy."      By  Algernon  Charles  Swin 
burne.     New  York:  1866. 

132 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

of  our  interest  should  be  romantic,  and  from  every 
possible  point  of  view  Queen  Mary  answers  this 
requisite,  whether  we  accept  her  as  a  very  con 
scientious  or  as  a  very  profligate  woman;  as  a 
martyr  or  simply  as  a  criminal.  For  the  fact  re 
mains  that  she  was  supremely  unhappy;  and  when 
to  this  fact  we  add  the  consideration  that  she  was 
in  person  supremely  lovely,  that  she  embodied, 
if  not  all  the  virtues,  at  least  all  the  charms,  of  her 
sex,  we  shall  not  be  at  loss  to  understand  the 
ready  application  of  her  history  to  purposes  of 
sentiment.  And  yet,  whoever  takes  her  in  hand 
is  held  to  a  certain  deliberate  view  of  her  character 
—  the  poet  quite  as  much  as  the  historian.  Upon 
the  historian,  indeed,  a  certain  conception  is  im 
posed  by  his  strict  responsibility  to  facts;  but  the 
poet,  to  whom  a  great  license  is  usually  allowed 
in  the  way  of  modifying  facts,  is  free  to  take  pretty 
much  the  view  that  pleases  him  best.  We  repeat, 
however,  that  upon  some  one  conception  he  is 
bound  to  take  his  stand,  and  to  occupy  it  to  the 
last.  Now,  the  immaturity  of  Mr.  Swinburne's 
work  lies,  if  we  are  not  mistaken,  in  his  failure  to 
make  very  clear  to  himself  what  he  thought  about 
his  heroine.  That  he  had  thought  a  great  deal 
about  her,  we  assuredly  do  not  doubt;  but  he  had 
failed  to  think  to  the  purpose.  He  had  apparently 
given  up  all  his  imagination  to  his  subject;  and, 
in  so  doing,  had  done  well;  but  it  seems  to  us  that 
in  this  process  his  subject  had  the  best  of  the  bar 
gain;  it  gave  him  very  little  in  return. 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

Mr.  Swinburne  has  printed  at  the  beginning  of 
his  play  a  short  passage  from  that  credulous  old 
voyager,  Sir  John  Mandeville,  wherein  he  speaks 
of  a  certain  isle  toward  the  north,  peopled  by 
beautiful  and  evil  women  with  eyes  of  precious 
stones,  which,  when  they  behold  any  man,  forth 
with  slay  him  with  the  beholding.  The  author's 
intention,  then,  has  been  to  indicate  a  certain 
poetic  analogy  between  these  fatal  sirens  and  his 
heroine.  The  idea  is  pretty;  the  reader  makes  the 
rapprochement  and  proceeds;  but  when,  as  he 
advances  in  his  reading,  it  dawns  upon  him  that 
it  is  upon  this  idea,  as  much  as  upon  any  other 
appreciable  one,  that  the  tragedy  rests,  he  ex 
periences  a  feeling  of  disappointment  which,  we 
are  bound  to  say,  accompanies  him  to  the  end. 
He  recurs  to  the  title-page  and  finds  another  epi 
graph,  from  Ronsard,  which  the  author  has  very 
prettily  translated  in  the  body  of  the  play: 

"With  coming  lilies  in  late  April  came 
Her  body,  fashioned  whiter  for  their  shame; 
And  roses,  touched  with  blood  since  Adam  bled, 
From  her  fair  color  filled  their  lips  with  red." 

The  reader's  growing  disappointment  comes 
from  his  growing  sense  of  the  incompetency  of 
any  idea  corresponding  at  all  exclusively  with 
these  poetic  fancies  to  serve  as  the  leading  idea 
of  the  work.  Out  of  this  disappointment,  indeed, 
there  comes  a  certain  quiet  satisfaction;  the  sat 
isfaction,  namely,  of  witnessing  the  downfall  of 
a  structure  reared  on  an  unsound  basis.  Mr. 

134 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

Swinburne,  following  the  fashion  of  the  day,  has 
endeavored  throughout  his  work  to  substitute 
color  for  design.  His  failure  is,  to  the  reader's 
mind,  an  homage  to  truth.  Let  us  assuredly  not 
proscribe  color;  but  let  us  first  prepare  something 
to  receive  it.  A  dramatic  work  without  design  is 
a  monstrosity.  We  may  rudely  convey  our  im 
pression  of  the  radical  weakness  of  "Chastelard" 
by  saying  that  it  has  no  backbone.  The  prose  of 
the  poetry  just  referred  to  —  that  salutary  prose 
which,  if  we  mistake  not,  intervenes  between 
poetic  thought  and  poetic  expression  —  is  that 
Mary  was  superlatively  fascinating  to  the  sense 
and  superlatively  heartless.  To  say,  in  poetry, 
that  a  woman  slays  a  man  with  her  jewelled  eyes, 
is  to  mean  in  prose  that  she  causes  every  man  to 
love  her  passionately,  and  that  she  deceives  every 
man  who  does  love  her.  As  a  woman  of  this 
quality,  if  we  fully  disengage  his  idea,  Mr.  Swin 
burne  accepts  Queen  Mary  —  in  other  words,  as  a 
coquette  on  the  heroic  scale.  But  we  repeat  that 
this  idea,  as  he  handles  it,  will  not  carry  his  play. 
His  understanding  of  Mary's  moyens  begins  and 
ends  with  his  very  lively  appreciation  of  the  graces 
of  her  body.  It  is  very  easy  to  believe  that  these 
were  infinite;  it  was,  indeed,  in  Mr.  Swinburne's 
power  to  make  us  know  absolutely  that  they  were. 
It  were  an  impertinence  to  remind  him  how 
Shakespeare  makes  us  know  such  things.  Shake 
speare's  word  carries  weight;  he  speaks  with 
authority.  The  plot  of  Mr.  Swinburne's  play, 

135 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

if  plot  it  may  be  called,  is  the  history  of  the  brief 
passion  aroused  by  Mary  in  the  breast  of  the 
French  adventurer  who  gives  his  name  to  the 
work.  He  has  followed  her  to  Scotland  and  keeps 
himself  under  her  eye;  she  encourages  his  devo 
tion,  but,  meanwhile,  marries  Darnley.  On  the 
night  of  her  marriage  he  makes  his  way  into  her 
presence,  and  she  makes  him  half  welcome.  Thus 
discovered,  however,  in  the  penetralia  of  the  palace, 
he  is  arrested  and  cast  into  prison.  Death  is  the 
inevitable  result  of  his  presumption.  Mary,  how 
ever,  by  a  bold  exercise  of  her  prerogative,  pardons 
him  and  sends  him  an  order  of  release,  which, 
instead  of  using,  he  destroys.  Mary  th'en  visits 
him  just  before  his  execution,  and,  in  a  scene 
which  appears  to  us  an  equal  compound  of  radical 
feebleness  and  superficial  cleverness,  finds  him 
resolved  to  die.  The  reader  assists  at  his  death 
through  the  time-honored  expedient  of  a  spectator 
at  a  window  describing  the  scene  without  to  a 
faint-hearted  companion  within.  The  play  ends 
with  these  pregnant  lines: 

"Make  way  there  for  the  lord  of  Bothwell;  room  — 
Place  for  my  lord  of  Bothwell  next  the  Queen." 

There  is,  moreover,  a  slight  under-plot,  resting 
upon  the  unrequited  passion  of  Mary  Beaton,  the 
queen's  woman,  for  Chastelard,  and  upon  her 
suppressed  jealousy  of  her  mistress.  There  is 
assuredly  in  all  this  the  stuff  of  a  truly  dramatic 
work;  but  as  the  case  stands,  it  appears  to  us  that 
the  dramatic  element  is  flagrantly  missed.  We 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

can  hardly  doubt,  indeed,  that  there  was  an  in 
tention  in  the  faint  and  indefinite  lines  in  which 
all  the  figures  but  that  of  the  Queen  are  drawn. 
There  is  every  reason  to  suppose  that  Mr.  Swin 
burne  had  advisedly  restricted  himself  to  the 
complete  and  consistent  exhibition  of  her  character 
alone.  Darnley,  Murray,  and  the  four  Marys  are 
merely  the  respective  signs  of  a  certain  number  of 
convenient  speeches.  Chastelard,  too,  is  practi 
cally  a  forfeit,  or,  rather,  he  and  Mary  are  but  one. 
The  only  way,  in  our  judgment,  to  force  home  upon 
the  reader  the  requisite  sense  of  Mary's  magical 
personal  influence  was  to  initiate  him  thoroughly 
into  its  effects  upon  Chastelard's  feelings.  This, 
we  repeat,  Mr.  Swinburne  has  not  even  attempted 
to  do.  Chastelard  descants  in  twenty  different 
passages  of  very  florid  and  eloquent  verse  upon 
the  intoxicating  beauties  of  his  mistress;  but 
meanwhile  the  play  stands  still.  Chastelard  is 
ready  to  damn  himself  for  Mary's  love,  and  this 
fact,  dramatically  so  great,  makes  shift  to  reflect 
itself  in  a  dozen  of  those  desperately  descriptive 
speeches  in  which  the  poetry  of  the  day  delights. 
Chastelard  is  in  love,  the  author  may  argue,  and 
a  lover  is  at  best  a  highly  imaginative  rhapsodist. 
Nay,  a  lover  is  at  the  worst  a  man,  and  a  man 
of  many  feelings.  We  should  be  very  sorry  to  be 
understood  as  wishing  to  suppress  such  talk  as 
Chastelard's.  On  the  contrary,  we  should  say  - 
let  him  talk  as  much  as  he  pleases,  and  let  him 
deal  out  poetry  by  the  handful,  the  more  the 

137 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

better.  But  meanwhile  let  not  the  play  languish, 
let  not  the  story  halt.  As  for  Mary,  towards 
whom  the  reader  is  to  conceive  Mr.  Swinburne  as 
having  assumed  serious  responsibilities,  we  may 
safely  say  that  he  has  left  her  untouched.  He  has 
consigned  her  neither  to  life  nor  to  death.  The 
light  of  her  great  name  illumines  his  page,  and 
here  and  there  the  imagination  of  the  cultivated 
reader  throbs  responsive  to  an  awakened  echo 
of  his  own  previous  reading.  If  Mr.  Swinburne 
has  failed  to  vivify  his  persons,  however,  if  he 
has  failed  to  express  his  subject,  he  has  at  least 
done  what  the  unsuccessful  artist  so  often  turns 
out  to  have  done:  he  has  in  a  very  lively  manner 
expressed  himself.  "  Atalanta  in  Calydon"  proved 
that  he  was  a  poet;  his  present  work  indicates 
that  his  poetic  temperament  is  of  a  very  vigorous 
order.  It  indicates,  moreover,  that  it  is  compara 
tively  easy  to  write  energetic  poetry,  but  that  it 
is  very  difficult  to  write  a  good  play. 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 


XVI 

J^ingsley' s  "Hereward" 

TV/fR-  KINGSLEY  has  written  nothing  better 
***•  than  this  recital  of  the  adventures  of  Here- 
ward,  son  of  the  famous  Lady  Godiva  of  Coven 
try,  and  the  "grim  earl",  Leofric,  her  husband  - 
who  as  a  boy,  under  King  Edward  the  Confessor, 
was  outlawed,  as  too  hard  a  case  for  his  parents 
to  manage;  who  took  service  with  foreign  princes 
and  turned  sea-rover  on  his  own  account;  who 
was  the  last  of  the  Berserkers  and  the  first  of  the 
knights-errant;  who  performed  unparalleled  feats 
of  valor  and  of  cunning;  who  on  the  Duke  of 
Normandy's  invasion  of  England  felt  himself, 
in  spite  of  his  outlawry,  still  an  Englishman  at 
heart,  sailed  over  to  England,  and  collected  an 
army  to  contest  the  Norman  rights;  who  contested 
them  long  and  bravely,  in  the  fen-country  of 
Lincolnshire,  but  at  last  found  the  invaders  too 
many  for  him  and  was  driven  for  a  subsistence  to 
the  greenwood,  where  he  set  the  fashion  to  Robin 
Hood  and  the  dozen  other  ballad-heroes  whom 
the  author  enumerates;  who  under  his  reverses 
grew  cold  and  faithless  to  the  devoted  wife  whom 

"  Hereward,  the  Last  of  the  English."  By  Charles  Kingsley . 
Boston  :  1866. 

139 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

he  had  married  out  of  Flanders,  and  who  had 
followed  his  fortunes  over  land  and  sea;  who, 
repudiating  Torfrida,  thought  to  patch  up  his 
prospects  by  a  base  union  with  a  Norman  princess, 
for  whom  he  had  cherished  an  earlier  but  an  un 
worthy  passion,  and  by  a  tardy  submission  to  the 
new  king;  but  who  at  last,  disappointed,  humil 
iated,  demoralized  by  idleness,  fell  a  victim,  in  his 
stalwart  prime,  to  the  jealousy  of  the  Norman 
knights. 

Mr.  Kingsley's  hero,  as  the  reader  sees,  is  an 
historical  figure,  duly  celebrated  in  the  contem 
porary  and  other  chronicles,  Anglo-Saxon  and 
Norman.  How  many  of  his  adventures  are  fic 
tion  does  not  here  signify,  inasmuch  as  they  were 
destined  to  become  fiction  in  Mr.  Kingsley's  novel; 
and,  as  the  elements  of  a  novel  by  a  man  of  genius, 
become  animated  with  a  more  lively  respectability 
than  could  ever  accrue  to  them  as  parcels  of  du 
bious  history.  For  his  leading  points,  Mr.  Kings- 
ley  abides  by  his  chroniclers,  who,  on  their  side, 
abide  by  tradition.  Tradition  had  made  of  Here- 
ward's  adventures  a  most  picturesque  and  ro 
mantic  story;  and  they  have  assuredly  lost  none 
of  their  qualities  in  Mr.  Kingsley's  hands.  Here- 
ward  is  a  hero  quite  after  his  own  heart;  one 
whose  virtue,  in  the  antique  sense,  comes  ready- 
made  to  his  use;  so  that  he  has  to  supply  this 
article  only  in  its  modern  significance.  The  last 
representative  of  unadulterated  English  grit,  of 
what  is  now  the  rich  marrow  of  the  English  char- 

140 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

acter,  could  not,  with  his  generous  excesses  and 
his  simple  shortcomings,  but  forcibly  inspire  our 
author's  imagination.  He  was  a  hero,  covered 
with  those  glories  which  as  a  poet,  of  an  epic 
turn,  as  an  admirable  story-teller  and  describer, 
and  as  an  Englishman,  Mr.  Kingsley  would  de 
light  to  relate;  and  he  was  a  man,  subject  to  those 
masculine  foibles  over  which,  in  his  ecclesiastical 
and  didactic  character,  our  author  would  love  to 
moralize.  Courage  has  ever  been  in  Mr.  Kings- 
ley's  view  the  divine  fact  in  human  nature;  and 
courage,  as  bravely  understood  as  he  understands 
it,  is  assuredly  an  excellent  thing.  He  has  done 
his  best  to  make  it  worthy  of  its  high  position; 
his  constant  effort  has  been  to  prove  that  it  is  not 
an  easy  virtue.  He  has  several  times  shown  us 
that  a  man  may  be  rich  in  that  courage  which  is 
the  condition  of  successful  adventure,  but  that 
he  may  be  very  much  afraid  of  his  duty.  In  fact, 
almost  every  one  of  his  heroes  has  been  com 
pelled  to  make  good  his  heroism  by  an  act  of 
signal  magnanimity.  In  this  manner  Kingsley 
has  insisted  upon  the  worthlessness  of  the  great 
est  natural  strength  when  unaccompanied  by  a 
corresponding  strength  of  soul.  One  of  his  remote 
disciples  has  given  a  name  to  this  unsanctified 
offset  the  title  of  the  tale,  "Barren  Honors." 
The  readers  of  "Two  Years  Ago"  will  remember, 
moreover,  the  pathetic  interest  which  attached 
in  that  charming  novel  to  the  essentially  unre- 
generate  manfulness  of  Tom  Turnall.  The  lesson 

141 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

of  his  history  was  that  it  behooves  every  man  to 
devote  his  muscle  —  we  can  find  no  better  name 
for  Mr.  Kingsley's  conception  of  intelligence  — 
to  the  service  of  strict  morality.  This  obliga 
tion  is  the  constant  theme  of  Mr.  Kingsley's 
teaching.  It  is  true  that,  to  his  perception,  the 
possibilities  of  human  character  run  in  a  very 
narrow  channel,  and  that  a  man  has  done  his 
grandest  when  he  has  contrived  not  to  shirk  his 
plain  duty.  Duty,  for  him,  is  a  five-barred  gate 
in  a  hunting-field:  the  cowards  dismount  and 
fumble  at  the  unyielding  padlock;  the  " gentle 
men  "  ride  steadily  to  the  leap. 

It  has  been  hinted  how  "Hereward"  turns  out 
a  coward.  After  a  long  career  of  generous  hack 
ing  and  hewing,  of  the  most  heroic  brutalities  and 
the  most  knightly  courtesies,  he  finds  himself  face 
to  face  with  one  of  the  homely  trials  of  private 
life.  He  is  tired  of  his  wife,  who  has  lost  her 
youth  and  her  beauty  in  his  service,  and  he  is 
tempted  by  another  woman  who  has  been  keep 
ing  both  for  him  through  all  the  years  of  his 
wanderings.  To  say,  shortly,  that  he  puts  away 
his  wife  and  marries  his  unworthy  temptress  would 
be  to  do  him  injustice.  This  is  what  he  comes  to, 
indeed;  but,  before  judging  him,  we  must  learn  in 
Mr.  Kingsley's  pages  how  naturally  he  does  so. 
Hereward  is  an  instance  of  that  "demoralization" 
by  defeat  of  which  we  have  heard  so  much  within 
the  last  five  years.  He  is  purely  and  simply  a 
fighting  man,  and  with  his  enormous  fighting 

142 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

capacity  he  may  not  unfitly  be  taken  to  repre 
sent,  on  a  reduced  scale,  the  susceptibilities  of  a 
whole  modern  army.  When,  at  last,  his  enemies 
outnumber  him,  he  loses  heart  and,  by  a  very 
simple  process,  becomes  good  for  nothing.  This 
process  —  the  gradual  corrosion  in  idleness  of  a 
practical  mind  of  the  heroic  type  —  is  one  which 
Mr.  Kingsley  is  very  well  qualified  to  trace;  and 
although  he  has  troubled  himself  throughout  very 
little  with  the  psychology  of  his  story,  and  has 
told  it  as  much  as  possible  in  the  simple  objective 
tone  of  the  old  chroniclers  to  whom  he  so  con 
stantly  refers,  he  has  yet,  thanks  to  the  moraliz 
ing  habit  which  he  is  apparently  quite  unable 
entirely  to  renounce,  given  us  a  very  pretty  in 
sight  into  poor  Hereward's  feelings. 

It  is  the  absence  of  the  old  attempt  at  philosophy 
and  at  the  writing  of  history  which  makes  the 
chief  merit  of  "Hereward"  as  compared  with  the 
author's  other  tales.  Certain  merits  Mr.  Kingsley 
has  in  splendid  fulness,  but  the  metaphysical 
faculty  is  not  one  of  them;  and  yet  in  every 
one  of  his  writings  hitherto  there  has  been  a  stub 
born  philosophical  pretension.  There  is  a  certain 
faculty  of  story-telling  as  complete  and,  used  in 
no  matter  what  simplicity,  as  legitimate  and  hon 
orable  as  any  other;  and  this  gift  is  Mr.  Kingsley's. 
But  it  has  been  his  constant  ambition  to  yoke  it 
with  the  procedure  of  an  historian.  An  important 
requisite  for  an  historian  is  to  know  how  to  handle 
ideas,  an  accomplishment  which  Mr.  Kingsley 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

lacks,  as  any  one  may  see  by  turning  to  his  lec 
tures  on  history,  and  especially  to  the  inaugural 
lecture,  in  which  he  exhibits  his  views  on   the 
philosophy  of  history.    But  in  the  work  before  us, 
as  we  have  said,  he  has  adhered  to  his  chroniclers; 
and  as  there  is  a  world  of  difference  between  a 
chronicler    and    an    historian,    he    has    not    been 
tempted  to  express  many  opinions.     He  has  told 
his  story  with  great  rapidity  and  vivacity,  and 
with    that   happy   command   of  language   which 
makes  him  one  of  the  few  English  writers  of  the 
present  moment   from  whose  style  we  derive  a 
positive  satisfaction.    He  writes  in  all  seriousness, 
and  yet  with  a  most  grateful  suppression  of  that 
aggressively    earnest    tone    which    has    hitherto 
formed  his  chief  point  of  contact  with  Mr.  Car- 
lyle.     He  writes,  in  short,  as  one  who  enjoys  his 
work;  and  this  fact  it  is  which  will  give  to  "Here- 
ward"    a    durable    and    inalienable    value.      The 
book  is  not,  in  our  opinion,  what  historical  novels 
are  so  apt  to  become  —  a  pastiche.    It  represents 
a  vast  amount  of  knowledge,  of  imagination,  and 
of  sympathy.     We  have  never   been   partial   to 
Mr.    Kingsley's    arrogance,    his   shallowness,    his 
sanctified  prejudices;  but  we  have  never  doubted 
that  he  is  a  man  of  genius.    "To  be  a  master/'  as 
we  were  told  the  other  day,  "is  to  be  a  master/' 
"Hereward"    is    simply    a    masterpiece,    in    the 
literal  sense  of  the  term,  and  as  such  it  is  good  to 
read.    This  fact  was  supreme  in  our  minds  as  we 
read  it,  and  it  seemed  more  forcibly  charged  than 

144 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

ever  before  with  the  assurance  of  the  author's 
peculiar  genius.  What  is  this  genius?  It  lies,  in 
the  first  place,  as  it  seems  to  us,  in  his  being  a 
heaven-commissioned  raconteur;  and,  in  the  second 
place,  in  his  being  a  consummate  Englishman. 
Some  of  them  are  better  Englishmen  than  others. 
Mr.  Kingsley  is  one  of  the  best.  By  as  much  as 
he  is  insufferable  when  he  dogmatizes  like  a 
schoolboy  upon  the  characteristics  of  his  nation, 
by  so  much  is  he  admirable  and  delightful  when 
he  unconsciously  expresses  them.  No  American 
can  see  these  qualities  embodied  in  a  work  of  art 
without  a  thrill  of  sympathy.  "Hereward"  is  an 
English  story  —  English  in  its  subject,  in  its 
spirit,  and  in  its  form.  He  would  be  a  very  poor 
American  who,  in  reading  it,  should  be  insensible 
to  the  charm  of  this  fact;  and  he  would  be  a  very 
poor  critic  who  should  show  himself  unable  to 
distinguish  between  Mr.  Kingsley  a  master  and 
Mr.  Kingsley  —  not  a  master. 


'45 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 


XVII 

Winifred  'Bertram 

VyiNIFRED  BERTRAM"  is,  in  our  judg- 
*^  ment,  much  better  than  the  author's  pre 
ceding  work:  it  is  in  fact  an  excellent  book  of  its 
class.  This  class  it  is  difficult  to  define.  Were  it 
not  that  in  a  certain  chapter  where  Sunday  litera 
ture  is  brought  into  question,  the  author  fails  to 
express  her  sympathy  with  it  in  a  manner  so  signal 
as  almost  to  suggest  an  intent  to  deprecate,  we 
should  say  that  her  own  book  was  fashioned  on 
this  principle.  The  chief  figure  in  Miss  Winifred 
Bertram's  world,  and  one  quite  overshadowing 
this  young  lady,  is  a  certain  Grace  Leigh,  who, 
albeit  of  a  very  tender  age,  is  frequently  made  the 
mouth-piece  of  the  author's  religious  convictions 
and  views  of  life.  She  is  so  free  from  human  im 
perfections,  and  under  all  circumstances  gravi 
tates  so  infallibly  and  gracefully  towards  the 
right,  that  her  attitude  on  any  question  may 
almost  be  taken  to  settle  that  question  for  spirits 
less  clearly  illumined.  She  administers  a  quiet 
snub  to  "Sunday  books"  by  declaring  that  she 
possesses  none.  "I  do  not  think  Shakespeare  is 

"Winifred  Bertram  and  the  World  She  Lived  In."     [By 
Mrs.  E.  R.  Charles.]     New  York  :  1866. 

146 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

quite  one/'  she  adds,  "nor  Homer,  although  it 
often  helps  me  on  Sundays,  and  every  day,  to 
think  of  them."  The  truth  is,  however,  that  this 
young  lady  is  so  instinctive  a  respecter  of  Sunday 
that  she  can  very  well  afford  to  dispense  with 
literary  stimulus.  Wherever  w.e  place  this  work, 
its  generous  and  liberal  tone  will  assure  it  a  re 
spectable  station;  but  is  the  author  confident  that 
she  has  not  been  liberal  even  to  laxity  in  the  com 
prehensive  bienveillance  which  she  attributes  to 
Miss  Grace  Leigh,  when  the  latter  affirms  that 
"all  sermons  are  nice"?  It  is  true  that  she  quali 
fies  her  assertion  by  the  further  remark  that  "at 
least  there  is  something  nice  in  them",  namely, 
the  text.  But  the  whole  speech  is  a  very  good  illus 
tration  of  the  weaker  side  of  the  author's  spirit. 
It  is  indeed  the  speech  of  a  child,  and  may  have 
been  intended  to  indicate  her  character  rather 
than  to  express  a  truth  of  the  author's  own  in 
telligence.  Nevertheless,  as  we  have  said,  this 
precocious  little  maiden  is  somehow  invested  with 
so  decided  an  air  of  authority,  that  even  when  she 
is  off  her  stilts  the  reader  feels  that  he  is  expected 
to  be  very  attentive.  Now  the  word  nice  as  ap 
plied  to  a  sermon  is  thoroughly  meaningless;  as 
applied  to  a  Scripture  text  it  is,  from  the  author's 
point  of  view,  almost  irreverent.  And  yet  the 
reader  is  annoyed  with  a  suspicion  that  the  author 
fancies  herself  to  have  conveyed  in  these  terms  a 
really  ponderable  truth.  Here  is  another  instance 
of  the  same  gushing  optimism.  Having  put  for- 

147 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

ward  the  startling  proposition  that  "everything 
is  pleasant"  -  it  will  be  observed  that  our  young 
friend  is  of  a  decidedly  generalizing  turn  —  Miss 

Jjrace  Leigh  proceeds  to  confirm   it  as  follows: 
"It  is  pleasant  to  wake  up  in  the  morning  and 

!  think  how  much  one  has  to  do  for  people  —  and 
it  is  pleasant  to  mend  father's  things  —  and  it  is 
pleasant  to  help  the  Miss  Levels  with  their  schol 
ars  —  and  it  is  pleasant  to  make  the  cold  meat 
seem  like  new  to  father  by  little  changes  —  and  it 
is  pleasant  that  Mr.  Treherne  [the  landlord]  is  a 
greengrocer  and  not  a  baker,  because  there  are 
never  any  hot,  uncomfortable  smells  —  and/'  to 
conclude,  "it  is  pleasant  that  there  is  a  corner  of 
the  churchyard  in  sight."  In  other  words,  we 
would  say,  with  all  deference,  it  is  pleasant  to  be 
able  to  be  sentimental  in  cold  blood.  This  pleas 
ure,  however,  is  to  the  full  as  "difficult  to  grasp 
as  the  converse  luxury  of  being  reasonable  in  a 
passion. 

In  spite  of  this  defect,  it  is  very  evident  that  it 
has  been  the  author's  aim  to  advocate  a  thor 
oughly  healthy  scheme  of  piety.  She  had  deter 
mined  to  supersede  the  old-fashioned  doctrinal 
tales  on  their  own  ground;  to  depict  a  world  in 
which  religious  zeal  should  be  compatible,  in  very 
young  persons,  with  sound  limbs  and  a  lively  in 
terest  in  secular  pastimes;  in  which  the  practice 
of  religious  duties  should  be  but  the  foremost 
condition  of  a  liberal  education.  This  world  of 
Miss  Winifred  Bertram  is,  accordingly,  a  highly 

148 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

accomplished  one.  It  recalls  those  fine  houses 
with  violet  window-panes,  in  whose  drawing-rooms 
even  the  humblest  visitors  are  touched  with  a 
faint  reflection  of  the  purple.  Sin  and  sorrow 
assume  a  roseate  hue.  Candid  virtue  wears  the 
beautiful  blush  of  modesty.  We  have  seen  how 
the  little  girl  above  quoted  gets  "help"  from 
Homer  and  Shakespeare.  So  every  one  about  her 
is  engaged  in  helping  and  being  helped.  She  her 
self  is  the  grand  centre  of  assistance,  in  virtue,  we 
presume,  of  her  being  in  direct  receipt  of  this  favor 
from  the  great  sources  just  mentioned.  She  walks 
through  these  pages  shedding  light  and  bounty, 
counsel  and  comfort;  preaching,  prescribing,  and 
chiding.  She  makes  as  pretty  a  figure  as  you 
could  wish;  but  she  is,  to  our  mind,  far  too  good 
to  be  true.  As  the  heroine  of  a  fairy  tale  she 
would  be  admirable,  but  as  a  member  of  this 
working-day  world  she  is  almost  ridiculous.  She 
is  a  nosegay  of  impossible  flowers  —  of  flowers 
that  do  not  bloom  in  the  low  temperature  of  child 
hood.  We  firmly  believe  that  children  in  pina 
fores,  however  rich  their  natural  promise,  do  not 
indulge  in  extemporaneous  prayer,  in  the  cogita 
tion  of  Scripture  texts,  and  in  the  visitation  of  the 
poor  and  needy,  except  in  very  conscious  imita 
tion  of  their  elders.  The  best  good  they  accom 
plish  is  effected  through  a  compromise  with  their 
essentially  immoral  love  of  pleasure.  To  be  dis 
interested  is  among  the  very  latest  lessons  they 
karn,  and  we  should  look  with  suspicion  upon  a 

149 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

little  girl  whose  life  was  devoted  to  the  service  of 
an  idea.  In  other  words,  children  grow  positively 
good  only  as  they  grow  wise,  and  they  grow  wise 
only  as  they  grow  old  and  leave  childhood  behind 
them.  To  make  them  good  before  their  time  is 
to  make  them  wise  before  their  time,  which  is  a 
very  painful  consummation.  The  author  justifies 
the  saintly  sagacity  of  little  Grace  Leigh  by  the 
fact  of  her  having  been  obliged  to  look  out  for 
herself  at  a  very  tender  age;  but  this  very  com 
petency  to  the  various  cares  and  difficulties  of  her 
position,  on  which  the  author  dwells  so  lovingly, 
is  to  us  a  thoroughly  unpleasant  spectacle.  An 
habitually  pre-occupied  child  is  likely  to  be  an 
unhappy  one,  and  an  unhappy  one  —  although, 
like  Mr.  Dickens's  Little  Nell,  she  may  never  do 
anything  naughty  —  is  certainly  little  more  than 
an  instrument  of  pathos.  We  can  conceive  of 
nothing  more  pernicious  for  a  child  than  a  pre 
mature  sense  of  the  seriousness  of  life,  and,  above 
all,  of  that  whole  range  of  obligations  to  which 
Miss  Grace  Leigh  is  so  keenly  sensitive  —  the 
obligations  of  charity,  the  duties  of  alms-giving. 
Nothing  would  tend  more  to  make  a  child  insuffer 
ably  arrogant  than  the  constant  presence  of  a 
company  of  pensioners  of  its  own  bounty.  Chil 
dren  are  essentially  democratic,  and  to  represent 
the  poor  as  in  a  state  of  perpetual  dependence  on 
them  is  to  destroy  some  of  their  happiest  traits. 

But  there  is  a  great  deal  in  these  pages  which 
is  evidently  meant  for  the  parents  of  the  little 

150 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

boys  and  girls  who  read  them.  There  is,  for  in 
stance,  the  episode  of  the  conversion  of  Mrs. 
O'Brien  from  elegant  carelessness,  and  heedless- 
ness  of  her  opportunities  for  beneficence,  to  an 
ingenious  and  systematic  practice  of  philanthropy. 
We  have  no  doubt  that  many  idle  women  with 
plenty  of  money  may  derive  considerable  profit 
from  the  perusal  of  Mrs.  O'Brien's  story.  And 
there  is  a  great  deal  more  which  they  may  find 
equally  entertaining  and  instructive  —  many  a 
forcible  reminder  of  the  earnestness  of  life,  and  of 
the  fact  that  by  taking  a  friendly  interest  in  their 
cooks  and  housemaids,  and  bestowing  kindly 
words  and  thoughts  as  well  as  loaves  and  purses 
upon  the  inhabitants  of  tenement-houses,  they 
may  diminish  the  sum  of  human  misery.  We 
agree  with  the  author  that  there  is  a  wise  way  of 
giving  alms  as  well  as  a  foolish  one,  and  that  that 
promiscuous  flinging  of  bounty  which  saves  the 
benefactor  all  the  trouble  of  enquiry  and  of  selec 
tion  is  very  detrimental.  But,  in  our  opinion,  it 
is  especially  detrimental  to  the  active  party.  To 
the  passive  one  —  the  pauper  —  it  is  of  compara 
tively  little  importance  whether  assistance  is  given 
him  intelligently  or  not.  We  should  say,  indeed, 
that  the  more  impersonally  it  is  given,  the  better 
for  both  parties.  The  kind  of  charity  advocated 
with  such  good  sense  and  good  feeling  in  these 
pages,  is  as  good  as  any  charity  can  be  which  is 
essentially  one  with  patronage.  To  show  that 
patronage  may  be  consistent  with  humility  has 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

been  —  practically,  at  least  —  the  author's  aim. 
In  the  violet-tinted  atmosphere  of  Miss  Winifred 
Bertram's  world,  this  may  be  so,  but  hardly,  we 
conceive,  in  the  daylight  of  nature.  Such  books 
as  these  —  books  teaching  the  rich  how  to  give  - 
should  always  carry  a  companion-piece  showing 
the  poor  how  to  take.  The  objects  of  the  en 
lightened  charity  practised  in  these  pages  are 
invariably  very  reasonable  as  well  as  very  senti 
mental.  A  little  wilfulness,  a  little  malice,  a  little 
blockheadedness,  a  little  ingratitude,  and  the  posi 
tion  of  the  alms-dealer  becomes  very  ungraceful; 
and  Miss  Winifred  Bertram's  companions  are 
nothing  if  not  graceful.  As  a  serious  work,  ac 
cordingly,  we  do  not  deem  this  account  of  them 
very  strong.  As  an  exhibition  of  a  very  beautiful 
ideal  of  life  by  a  person  who  has  felt  very  gener 
ously  on  the  subject,  it  deserves  all  respect;  but 
we  cannot  help  feeling  that  religion  and  human 
nature,  and  good  and  evil,  and  all  the  other  ob 
jects  of  the  author's  concern,  are  of  very  different 
aspect  and  proportions  from  those  into  which  she 
casts  them.  Nevertheless,  her  book  may  be  read 
with  excellent  profit  by  all  well-disposed  persons: 
it  is  full  of  incidental  merit,  and  is  uncommonly 
well  written.  Little  girls,  we  suppose,  will  read  it 
and  like  it,  and  for  a  few  days  strive  to  emulate 
Grace  Leigh.  But  they  will  eventually  relax  their 
spiritual  sinews,  we  trust,  and  be  good  once  more 
in  a  fashion  less  formidable  to  their  unregenerate 
elders. 

152 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 


XVIII 
JXCrs.   gas  {el  I 

TT7E  cannot  help  thinking  that  in  "Wives  and 
*  *  Daughters"  the  late  Mrs.  Gaskell  has 
added  to  the  number  of  those  works  of  fiction  - 
of  which  we  cannot  perhaps  count  more  than  a 
score  as  having  been  produced  in  our  time  - 
which  will  outlast  the  duration  of  their  novelty 
and  continue  for  years  to  come  to  be  read  and 
relished  for  a  higher  order  of  merits.  Besides 
being  the  best  of  the  author's  own  tales  —  put 
ting  aside  "Cranford",  that  is,  which  as  a  work 
of  quite  other  pretensions  ought  not  to  be  weighed 
against  it,  and  which  seems  to  us  manifestly  des 
tined  in  its  modest  way  to  become  a  classic  - 
it  is  also  one  of  the  very  best  novels  of  its  kind. 
So  delicately,  so  elaborately,  so  artistically,  so 
truthfully,  and  heartily  is  the  story  wrought  out, 
that  the  hours  given  to  its  perusal  seem  like  hours 
actually  spent,  in  the  flesh  as  well  as  the  spirit, 
among  the  scenes  and  people  described,  in  the 
atmosphere  of  their  motives,  feelings,  traditions, 
associations.  The  gentle  skill  with  which  the 
reader  is  slowly  involved  in  the  tissue  of  the  story; 

"Wives  and  Daughters."     By  Mrs.  Gaskell.     New  York  : 
1866. 

J53 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

the  delicacy  of  the  handwork  which  has  perfected 
every  mesh  of  the  net  in  which  he  finds  himself 
ultimately  entangled;  the  lightness  of  touch 
which,  while  he  stands  all  unsuspicious  of  literary 
artifice,  has  stopped  every  issue  into  the  real 
world;  the  admirable,  inaudible,  invisible  exer 
cise  of  creative  power,  in  short,  with  which  a 
new  and  arbitrary  world  is  reared  over  his  heed 
less  head  —  a  world  insidiously  inclusive  of  him 
(such  is  the  assoupissement  of  his  critical  sense), 
complete  in  every  particular,  from  the  divine 
blue  of  the  summer  sky  to  the  June-bugs  in  the 
roses,  from  Cynthia  Kirkpatrick  and  her  infinite 
revelations  of  human  nature  to  old  Mrs.  Goode- 
nough  and  her  provincial  bad  grammar  —  these 
marvellous  results,  we  say,  are  such  as  to  compel 
the  reader's  very  warmest  admiration,  and  to 
make  him  feel,  in  his  gratitude  for  this  seeming 
accession  of  social  and  moral  knowledge,  as  if  he 
made  but  a  poor  return  to  the  author  in  testifying, 
no  matter  how  strongly,  to  the  fact  of  her  genius. 
For  Mrs.  Gaskell's  genius  was  so  very  compos 
ite  as  a  quality,  it  was  so  obviously  the  offspring 
of  her  affections,  her  feelings,  her  associations, 
and  (considering  that,  after  all,  it  was  genius) 
was  so  little  of  an  intellectual  matter,  that  it 
seems  almost  like  slighting  these  charming  facts 
to  talk  of  them  under  a  collective  name,  espe 
cially  when  that  name  is  a  term  so  coarsely 
and  disrespectfully  synthetic  as  the  word  genius 
has  grown  to  be.  But  genius  is  of  many  kinds, 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

and  we  are  almost  tempted  to  say  that  that  of 
Mrs.  Gaskell  strikes  us  as  being  little  else  than  a 
peculiar  play  of  her  personal  character.  In  say 
ing  this  we  wish  to  be  understood  as  valuing  not 
her  intellect  the  less,  but  her  character  the  more. 
Were  we  touching  upon  her  literary  character  at 
large,  we  should  say  that  in  her  literary  career  as 
a  whole  she  displayed,  considering  her  success,  a 
minimum  of  head.  Her  career  was  marked  by 
several  little  literary  indiscretions,  which  show 
how  much  writing  was  a  matter  of  pure  feeling 
with  her.  Her  "Life  of  Miss  Bronte",  for  in 
stance,  although  a  very  readable  and  delightful 
book,  is  one  which  a  woman  of  strong  head  could 
not  possibly  have  written;  for,  full  as  it  is  of  fine 
qualities,  of  affection,  of  generosity,  of  sympathy, 
of  imagination,  it  lacks  the  prime  requisites  of  a 
good  biography.  It  is  written  with  a  signal  want 
of  judgment  and  of  critical  power;  and  it  has 
always  seemed  to  us  that  it  tells  the  reader  con 
siderably  more  about  Mrs.  Gaskell  than  about 
Miss  Bronte.  In  the  tale  before  us  this  same  want 
of  judgment,  as  we  may  still  call  it  in  the  absence 
of  a  better  name,  presuming  that  the  term  ap 
plies  to  it  only  as  it  stands  contrasted  with  richer 
gifts,  is  shown;  not  in  the  general  management  of 
the  story,  nor  yet  in  the  details,  most  of  which 
are  as  good  as  perfect,  but  in  the  way  in  which, 
as  the  tale  progresses,  the  author  loses  herself  in 
its  current  very  much  as  we  have  seen  that  she 
causes  the  reader  to  do. 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

The  book  is  very  long  and  of  an  interest  so 
quiet  that  not  a  few  of  its  readers  will  be  sure  to 
vote  it  dull.  In  the  early  portion  especially  the 
details  are  so  numerous  and  so  minute  that  even 
a  very  well-disposed  reader  will  be  tempted  to  lay 
down  the  book  and  ask  himself  of  what  possible 
concern  to  him  are  the  clean  frocks  and  the  French 
lessons  of  little  Molly  Gibson.  But  if  he  will 
have  patience  awhile  he  will  see.  As  an  end  these 
modest  domestic  facts  are  indeed  valueless;  but 
as  a  means  to  what  the  author  would  probably 
have  called  a  "realization"  of  her  central  idea, 
/.  e.,  Molly  Gibson,  a  product,  to  a  certain  extent, 
of  clean  frocks  and  French  lessons,  they  hold  an 
eminently  respectable  place.  As  he  gets  on  in 
the  story  he  is  thankful  for  them.  They  have 
educated  him  to  a  proper  degree  of  interest  in  the 
heroine.  He  feels  that  he  knows  her  the  better 
and  loves  her  the  more  for  a  certain  acquaint 
ance  with  the  minutice  of  her  homely  bourgeois 
life.  Molly  Gibson,  however,  in  spite  of  the  al 
most  fraternal  relation  which  is  thus  established 
between  herself  and  the  reader  —  or  perhaps,  in 
deed,  because  of  it,  for  if  no  man  is  a  hero  to  his 
valet  de  chambre,  it  may  be  said  that  no  young 
lady  is  a  heroine  to  one  who,  if  we  may  so  express 
our  meaning,  has  known  her  since  she  was  "so 
high"  -Molly  Gibson,  we  repeat,  commands  a 
slighter  degree  of  interest  than  the  companion 
figure  of  Cynthia  Kirkpatrick.  Of  this  figure,  in 
a  note  affixed  to  the  book  in  apology  for  the  ab- 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

sence  of  the  final  chapter,  which  Mrs.  Gaskell  did 
not  live  to  write,  the  editor  of  the  magazine  in 
which  the  story  originally  appeared  speaks  in 
terms  of  very  high  praise;  and  yet,  as  it  seems  to 
us,  of  praise  thoroughly  well  deserved.  To  de 
scribe  Cynthia  as  she  stands  in  Mrs.  Gaskell's 
pages  is  impossible.  The  reader  who  cares  to 
know  her  must  trace  her  attentively  out.  She 
is  a  girl  of  whom,  in  life,  any  one  of  her  friends,  so 
challenged,  would  hesitate  to  attempt  to  give  a 
general  account,  and  yet  whose  specific  sayings 
and  doings  and  looks  such  a  friend  would  probably 
delight  to  talk  about.  This  latter  has  been  Mrs. 
Gaskell's  course;  and  if,  in  a  certain  sense,  it  shows 
her  weakness,  it  also  shows  her  wisdom.  She  had 
probably  known  a  Cynthia  Kirkpatrick,  a  resume 
of  whose  character  she  had  given  up  as  hopeless; 
and  she  has  here  accordingly  taken  a  generous 
revenge  in  an  analysis  as  admirably  conducted  as 
any  we  remember  to  have  read.  She  contents 
herself  with  a  simple  record  of  the  innumerable 
small  facts  of  the  young  girl's  daily  life,  and  leaves 
the  reader  to  draw  his  conclusions.  He  draws 
them  as  he  proceeds,  and  yet  leaves  them  always 
subject  to  revision;  and  he  derives  from  the 
author's  own  marked  abdication  of  the  authorita 
tive  generalizing  tone  which,  when  the  other  char 
acters  are  concerned,  she  has  used  as  a  right,  a 
very  delightful  sense  of  the  mystery  of  Cynthia's 
nature  and  of  those  large  proportions  which 
mystery  always  suggests.  The  fact  is  that  genius 

'57 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

is  always  difficult  to  formulate,  and  that  Cynthia 
had  a  genius  for  fascination.  Her  whole  character 
subserved  this  end.  Next  after  her  we  think  her 
mother  the  best  drawn  character  in  the  book. 
Less  difficult  indeed  to  draw  than  the  daughter, 
the  very  nicest  art  was  yet  required  to  keep  her 
from  merging,  in  the  reader's  sight,  into  an  amus 
ing  caricature  —  a  sort  of  commixture  of  a  very 
mild  solution  of  Becky  Sharp  with  an  equally  feeble 
decoction  of  Mrs.  Nickleby.  Touch  by  touch, 
under  the  reader's  eye,  she  builds  herself  up  into 
her  selfish  and  silly  and  consummately  natural 
completeness. 

Mrs.  Gaskell's  men  are  less  successful  than  her 
women,  and  her  hero  in  this  book,  making  all 
allowance  for  the  type  of  man  intended,  is  hardly 
interesting  enough  in  juxtaposition  with  his  vivid 
sweethearts.  Still  his  defects  as  a  masculine  being 
are  negative  and  not  positive,  which  is  something 
to  be  thankful  for,  now  that  lady-novelists  are 
growing  completely  to  eschew  the  use  of  simple 
and  honest  youths.  Osborne  Hamley,  a  much 
more  ambitious  figure  than  Roger,  and  ambitious 
as  the  figure  of  Cynthia  is  ambitious,  is  to  our 
judgment  less  successful  than  either  of  these;  and 
we  think  the  praise  given  him  in  the  editorial  note 
above-mentioned  is  excessive.  He  has  a  place  in 
the  story,  and  he  is  delicately  and  even  forcibly 
conceived,  but  he  is  practically  little  more  than 
a  suggestion.  Mrs.  Gaskell  had  exhausted  her 
poetry  upon  Cynthia,  and  she  could  spare  to 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

Osborne's  very  dramatic  and  even  romantic  pre 
dicaments  little  more  than  the  close  prosaic  han 
dling  which  she  had  found  sufficient  for  the  more 
vulgar  creations.  Where  this  handling  accords 
thoroughly  with  the  spirit  of  the  figures,  as  in 
the  case  of  Doctor  Gibson  and  Squire  Hamley, 
the  result  is  admirable.  It  is  good  praise  of  these 
strongly  marked,  masculine,  middle-aged  men  to 
say  that  they  are  as  forcibly  drawn  as  if  a  wise 
masculine  hand  had  drawn  them.  Perhaps  the 
best  scene  in  the  book  (as  the  editor  remarks)  is 
the  one  in  which  the  squire  smokes  a  pipe  with 
one  of  his  sons  after  his  high  words  with  the  other. 
We  have  intimated  that  this  scene  is  prosaic;  but 
let  not  the  reader  take  fright  at  the  word.  If  an 
author  can  be  powerful,  delicate,  humorous, 
pathetic,  dramatic,  within  the  strict  limits  of 
homely  prose,  we  see  no  need  of  his  "dropping 
into  poetry,"  as  Mr.  Dickens  says.  It  is  Mrs. 
Gaskell's  highest  praise  to  have  been  all  of  this, 
and  yet  to  have  written  "an  everyday  story"  (as, 
if  we  mistake  not,  the  original  title  of  "Wives  and 
Daughters"  ran)  in  an  everyday  style. 


'59 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 


XIX 
<3&arian  T^ooke 

is  an  average  novel  and  a  very  bad  book 
—  a  distinction,  as  it  seems  to  us,  easy  to 
understand.  There  have  been  many  novels,  con 
temptible  or  ridiculous  in  point  of  dramatic  in 
terest,  which  have  obtained  a  respectful  attention 
through  the  wisdom  of  their  tone  or  the  elevation 
of  their  style.  There  have  been  others,  skilful 
and  absorbing  in  the  matter  of  plot,  which  the 
reader  has  nevertheless  flung  aside  half-read,  as 
intolerably  foolish,  or  intolerably  vicious  in 
spirit.  The  plot  of  "Marian  Rooke",  although  it 
can  hardly  be  called  very  skilful  on  the  writer 's 
part  or  very  absorbing  on  the  reader's,  is  yet 
decently  interesting,  as  plots  go,  and  may  readily 
suffice  to  the  entertainment  of  those  jolly  bar 
barians  of  taste  who  read  novels  only  for  what  they 
call  the  "story."  "Marian  Rooke"  has  an  abun 
dance  —  a  superabundance  —  of  story,  a  vast  deal 
of  incident,  of  variety,  of  sentiment,  of  passion, 
of  description,  of  conversation,  and  of  that  face 
tious  element  which  no  gentleman's  novel  should 
be  without.  These  merits,  however,  are  not  by 

"Marian  Rooke,  or  The  Quest  for  Fortune  :  a  Tale  of  the 
Younger  World."     By  Henry  D.  Sedley.     New  York  :  1865. 

1 60 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

themselves  of  so  high  an  order  as  to  justify  us 
to  our  conscience  in  an  attempt  to  impose  them 
upon  the  public  recognition;  we  should  have  been 
content  to  leave  their  destinies  to  fortune.  The 
part  of  duty  in  the  matter,  since  duty  there  is,  is 
to  point  out  the  defects  of  the  work. 

"Marian  Rooke",  then,  is  a  tale  of  the  "younger 
world",  or,  in  other  words,  of  life  in  the  United 
States.  If  we  are  not  mistaken,  it  was  published 
in  England  either  just  before,  or  simultaneously 
with,  its  appearance  in  New  York;  and  if  on  this 
point,  too,  we  are  not  wrong  in  our  facts,  it  met 
with  a  warmer  welcome  on  the  other  side  of  the 
water  than  it  has  encountered  on  this,  as,  indeed, 
it  had  every  reason  to  do,  inasmuch  as  we  may 
convey  a  certain  idea  of  its  spirit  in  saying  that, 
whereas  it  was  written  for  English  circulating 
libraries,  it  was  written  only,  if  we  may  so  express 
it,  at  American  ones.  This  air  of  divided  nation 
ality  which  attended  its  production  is  an  index 
of  a  similar  feature  in  the  conception  of  the  book. 
The  reader  vacillates  between  setting  the  author 
down  as  a  consummate  Yankee  and  dubbing  him 
as  a  consummate  cockney.  At  one  moment  he 
asserts  himself  an  Englishman  who  has  a  peril 
ously  small  amount  of  learning  about  the  United 
States,  and  at  another  he  seems  conclusively  to 
prove  himself  one  of  our  dear  fellow-countrymen> 
with  his  honest  head  slightly  turned  by  a  glimpse 
of  the  carriage  going  to  one  of  the  Queen  of 
England's  drawing-rooms.  It  remains  a  constant 

161 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

source  of  perplexity  that  he  should  be  at  once  so 
poor  an  American  and  so  poor  an  Englishman. 
No  Englishman  ever  entertained  for  New  Eng 
land  the  magnificent  loathing  which  burns  in  Mr. 
Sedley's  pages.  What  is  New  England  to  him  or 
he  to  New  England  that  he  should  thus  rack  his 
ingenuity  in  her  behalf?  So  divinely  disinterested 
an  hostility  was  never  inspired  by  a  mere  interest 
in  abstract  truth.  A  tour  in  the  United  States  in 
midwinter,  with  a  fatal  succession  of  bad  hotels, 
exorbitant  hack-drivers,  impertinent  steamboat 
clerks,  thankless  female  fellow-travellers,  and  ter 
rific  railway  collisions,  might  possibly  create  in  a 
generous  British  bosom  a  certain  lusty  personal 
antipathy  to  our  unmannerly  democracy;  a  vehe 
ment,  honest  expression  of  which  could  not  fail 
to  make  a  chapter  of  picturesque  and  profitable 
reading.  But  it  takes  an  emancipated,  a  disfran 
chised,  an  outlawed,  or,  if  you  please,  a  disap 
pointed,  American  to  wish  us  to  believe  that  he 
detests  us  simply  on  theory.  This  impression  the 
author  of  "Marian  Rooke"  would  fain  convey. 
Therefore  we  say  we  set  him  down  as  one  of  our 
selves.  But  he  betrays,  incidentally,  as  we  have 
intimated,  so  —  what  shall  we  call  it?  —  so  lively 
an  ignorance  of  our  manners  and  customs,  our 
method  of  action  and  of  speech,  that  this  hypothe 
sis  also  is  not  without  a  certain  measure  of  dis 
proof.  He  has  vouchsafed  us  no  information  on 
the  contested  point;  and  this  it  is  that  prevents 
conjecture  from  being  impertinent,  for  it  is  founded 

162 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

solely  upon  the  evidence  of  the  story  itself,  which, 
as  a  book  once  fairly  and  squarely  published,  is 
utterly  given  over  to  the  public  use,  and  to  all  such 
probing,  weighing,  and  analyzing  as  may  help 
the  public  to  understand  it.  Further  reflection, 
then,  on  the  mooted  point  leads  us  to  the  conclu 
sion  that  in  order  to  furnish  Mr.  Sedley  with  any 
local  habitation  whatever  we  must  consider  one 
of  the  two  conflicting  elements  of  his  tale  as  a 
purely  dramatic  characteristic.  As  the  conflict 
lies  between  his  perfect  familiarity  with  some  points 
of  American  life  and  his  singular  and  arbitrary 
ignorance  of  others,  we  must  decide  that  either 
his  knowledge  or  his  ignorance  is  assumed.  And 
as  his  ignorance  is  generally  not  so  much  an  absence 
of  knowledge  and  of  statement  as  positive  false 
knowledge  and  false  statement,  we  embrace  the 
hypothesis  that  his  scathing  indifference  to  the 
facts  of  the  case  is  the  result  of  a  good  deal  of 
painful  ingenuity.  And  this  is  what  we  have  in 
mind  in  calling  his  book  at  the  outset  a  bad  book. 
A  book  which,  from  an  avowedly  critical  stand 
point  —  even  if  it  were  a  very  flimsy  novel  - 
should  roundly  abuse  and  reprobate  all  things 
American,  would  command  our  respect,  if  it  did 
not  command  our  agreement.  But  a  book  pro 
jected  (intellectually)  from  the  midst  of  us,  as  the 
present  one  betrays  itself  to  have  been,  intended 
to  strike  us  by  a  rebound  from  the  ignorant  sym 
pathy  of  foreign  readers,  displaying  its  knowledge 
of  us  by  the  possession  of  a  large  number  of  facts 

163 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

and  by  the  petty  perversion  of  every  fact  which 
it  does  possess,  and  leaving  an  issue  for  escape 
from  the  charge  of  deliberate  misrepresentation 
(so  good  a  Yankee  is  the  author)  by  a  species  of 
implicit  self-reference  to  a  community  where  a 
certain  ignorance  of  our  habits  is  not  more  than 
natural,  —  a  book  in  which  the  author  has  put 
himself  to  so  much  trouble  to  do  such  an  ugly 
piece  of  work,  commands  neither  our  agreement 
nor  our  respect. 

The  hero  of  the  tale  is  the  son  of  a  dissolute 
English  gentleman  —  time-honored  and  familiar 
combination!  —  who,  having  immigrated  to  this 
country,  married  an  American  wife.  In  this  man 
ner  originated  the  fatal  "kink"  in  the  young 
man's  nature  —  the  conflict  between  his  literal 
allegiance  to  the  land  of  his  birth  and  his  spiritual 
affinity  with  the  proud  home  of  his  ancestors. 
Marian  Rooke,  a  burning  Creole  beauty,  the 
daughter  of  a  rich  Louisiana  planter,  is  similarly 
at  odds  with  fortune,  it  having  been  discovered  on 
her  father's  death  that  she  is  the  child  of  a  slave. 
Hence  a  beautiful  bond  of  sympathy  between  the 
two.  We  do  not  propose  to  relate  their  adven 
tures.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  these  are  cast 
successively  in  California,  in  Europe,  in  Boston, 
in  Berkshire  County,  Massachusetts  (where  the 
local  color  becomes  quite  appalling),  and  in  the 
city  of  New  York.  The  hero  and  heroine  are 
duly  joined  in  matrimony  at  the  close,  and  sub 
sequently,  we  are  informed,  the  hero  does  "yeo- 

164 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

man's  service"  in  the  late  war,  on  which  side  the 
author  (still  like  a  shrewd  Yankee)  refuses  to  tell 
us,  so  leaving  in  considerable  doubt  (since  so 
essential  a  point  is  perforce  slighted)  whether  he 
really  fought  on  either.  He  serves  throughout 
the  book  as  an  instrument  for  eliciting  in  their 
utmost  intensity  the  vulgar  manners  and  sordid 
morals  of  the  American  people.  He  is,  probably 
in  view  of  this  fact,  the  most  deeply  pathetic 
character  in  the  whole  extent  of  fiction.  We  have 
no  space  categorically  to  refute  the  ingenious 
accusations  which  Mr.  Sedley  has  levied  upon 
our  manners  and  our  speech.  We  must  content 
ourselves  with  saying  that  as,  if  they  were  true, 
they  would  tell  a  sad  tale  of  our  vulgarity,  so, 
since  they  are  false,  they  tell  a  sad  tale  of  the 
vulgarity  of  Mr.  Sedley 's  imagination.  What 
California  was,  socially,  fifteen  years  ago,  we  can 
not  say;  but  it  was  certainly  not  the  headquarters 
of  politeness,  and  we  accordingly  leave  it  to  Mr. 
Sedley's  tender  mercies.  But  we  are  better  quali 
fied  to  judge  of  New  York  and  Boston.  Here  is  a 
young  lady  of  fashion,  of  the  former  city,  welcom 
ing  her  mother's  guests  at  a  conversazione:  "We 
are  very  gay  to-night,  although  promiscuous.  Talk 
has  been  lively.  There  are  a  good  many  ladies 
round.  Pa  and  Professor  Sukkar  are  conferring 
on  immorality.  Pa  is  speaking  now.  Hush!" 
Here  is  another  young  lady,  with  the  best  blood 
in  the  land  in  her  veins,  conferring  with  her 
mother  as  to  the  probable  character  of  the  hero, 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

who  has  just  made  his  entree  into  New  York 
society:  "Heavens,  no!  Clinton  would  have  never 
given  letters  to  a  politician;  whatever  his  faults, 
my  brother  would  never  have  introduced  a  politi 
cian  into  the  family  of  the  Parapets!"  "Unless 
sinning  through  ignorance,  perhaps/'  suggests  the 
mother.  "Ignorance!  surely  their  odious  names 
are  familiar  enough.  To  be  sure  we  don't  read 
the  detestable  newspapers,  their  organs,  but  the 
men  do;  and  I  am  confident  either  papa  or  Clinton 
would  know  if  Mr.  Gifford  had  been  compromised 
in  politics."  Having  represented  every  American 
in  his  pages,  of  no  matter  what  station  in  life,  as 
using  a  form  of  the  traditional  Sam  Slick  dialect, 
in  which  all  the  humorous  quaintness  is  omitted 
and  all  the  extravagant  coarseness  is  retained, 
the  author  makes  generous  amends  at  last  by  the 
elegant  language  which  he  puts  into  the  mouths 
of  the  Parapets,  the  family  of  the  young  lady  just 
quoted;  and  by  the  still  more  elegant  distinction 
which  he  claims  for  them.  Into  various  details  of 
their  dreary  snobbishness  we  will  not  plunge. 
They  constitute,  in  the  author's  sight,  the  one 
redeeming  feature  of  our  deplorable  social  con 
dition;  and  he  assures  us  that,  incredible  as  the 
fact  may  appear,  they  yet  do  actually  flourish  in 
aristocratic  idleness  and  seclusion  in  the  midst  of 
our  universal  barbarism.  This,  surely,  is  the  most 
unkindest  cut  of  all.  It  suggests,  moreover,  fearful 
reflections  as  to  what  our  fate  would  have  been  had 
Mr.  Sedley  been  minded  to  be  complimentary. 

1 66 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 


XX 

U^oble  J^ife 

lives  have  always  been  a  sort  of  spe- 
cialty  with  the  author  of  "John  Halifax." 
Few  novelists,  in  this  age  of  sympathy  with  pic 
turesque  turpitude,  have  given  us  such  flattering 
accounts  of  human  nature,  or  have  paid  such 
glowing  tributes  to  virtue.  "John  Halifax"  was 
an  attempt  to  tell  the  story  of  a  life  perfect  in 
every  particular;  and  to  relate,  moreover,  every 
particular  of  it.  The  hero  was  a  sort  of  Sir  Charles 
Grandison  of  the  democracy,  faultless  in  manner 
and  in  morals.  There  is  something  almost  awful 
in  the  thought  of  a  writer  undertaking  to  give 
a  detailed  picture  of  the  actions  of  a  perfectly 
virtuous  being.  Sir  Charles  Grandison,  with  his 
wig  and  his  sword,  his  high  heels,  his  bows,  his 
smiles,  his  Johnsonian  compliments,  his  irre 
proachable  tone,  his  moderation,  his  reverence, 
his  piety,  his*  decency  in  all  the  relations  of  life, 
was  possible  to  the  author,  and  is  tolerable  to  the 
reader,  only  as  the  product  of  an  age  in  which 
nature  was  represented  by  majestic  generaliza 
tions.  But  to  create  a  model  gentleman  in  an 

"A  Noble  Life."     By  Mrs.  D.  M.  M.  Craik.     New  York  : 
1866. 

l67 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

age  when,  to  be  satisfactory  to  the  general  public, 
art  has  to  specify  every  individual  fact  of  nature; 
when,  in  order  to  believe  what  we  are  desired  to 
believe  of  such  a  person,  we  need  to  see  him  photo 
graphed  at  each  successive  stage  of  his  proceed 
ings,  argues  either  great  courage  or  great  temerity 
on  the  part  of  a  writer,  and  certainly  involves  a 
system  of  bold  co-operation  on  the  reader's  side. 
We  cannot  but  think  that,  if  Miss  Muloch  had 
weighed  her  task  more  fairly,  she  would  have 
shrunk  from  it  in  dismay.  But  neither  before  nor 
after  his  successful  incarnation  was  John  Halifax 
to  be  weighed  or  measured.  We  know  of  no  scales 
that  will  hold  him,  and  of  no  unit  of  length  with 
which  to  compare  him.  He  is  infinite;  he  outlasts 
time;  he  is  enshrined  in  a  million  innocent  breasts; 
and  before  his  awful  perfection  and  his  eternal 
durability  we  respectfully  lower  our  lance.  We 
have,  indeed,  not  the  least  inclination  to  laugh  at 
him;  nor  do  we  desire  to  speak  with  anything  but 
respect  of  the  spirit  in  which  he  and  his  numer 
ous  brothers  and  sisters  have  been  conceived;  for 
we  believe  it  to  have  been,  at  bottom,  a  serious 
one.  That  is,  Miss  Muloch  is  manifestly  a  serious 
lover  of  human  nature,  and  a  passionate  admirer 
of  a  fine  man  and  a  fine  woman.  Here,  surely,  is 
a  good  solid  basis  to  work  upon;  and  we  are  cer 
tain  that  on  this  point  Miss  Muloch  yields  to 
none  in  the  force  of  her  inspiration.  But  she 
gives  us  the  impression  of  having  always  looked  at 
men  and  women  through  a  curtain  of  rose-colored 

168 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

gauze.  This  impediment  to  a  clear  and  natural 
vision  is  nothing  more,  we  conceive,  than  her 
excessive  sentimentality.  Such  a  defect  may  be 
but  the  exaggeration  of  a  virtue,  but  it  makes  sad 
work  in  Miss  Muloch's  tales.  It  destroys  their 
most  vital  property  —  their  appearance  of  reality; 
it  falsifies  every  fact  and  every  truth  it  touches; 
and,  by  reaction,  it  inevitably  impugns  the  writ 
er's  sincerity. 

The  volume  before  us  contains  the  story  of  an 
unfortunate  man  who,  born  to  wealth  and  honors, 
is  rendered  incompetent,  by  ill-health  and  de 
formity,  to  the  simplest  offices  of  life,  but  whose 
soul  shines  the  brighter  for  this  eclipse  of  his  body. 
Orphaned,  dwarfed,  crippled,  unable  to  walk,  to 
hold  a  fork,  a  book,  or  a  pen,  with  body  enough  to 
suffer  acutely,  and  yet  with  so  little  that  he  can 
act  only  through  servants  upon  the  objects  nearest 
to  him,  he  contrives,  nevertheless,  to  maintain  a 
noble  equanimity,  to  practise  a  boundless  charity, 
and  to  achieve  a  wide  intellectual  culture.  Such 
is  Miss  Muloch's  noble  life,  and  this  time,  at 
least,  we  do  not  contest  her  epithet.  We  might 
cite  several  examples  to  illustrate  that  lively  pre 
dilection  for  cripples  and  invalids  by  which  she 
has  always  been  distinguished;  but  we  defer  to 
this  generous  idiosyncracy.  It  is  no  more  than 
right  that  the  sickly  half  of  humanity  should  have 
its  chronicler;  and  as  far  as  the  Earl  of  Cairnforth 
is  concerned,  it  were  a  real  loss  to  the  robust  half 
that  he  should  lack  his  poet.  For  we  cannot 

169 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

help  thinking  that,  admirable  as  the  subject  is, 
the  author  has  done  it  fair  justice,  and  that  she 
has  appreciated  its  great  opportunities.  She  has 
handled  it  delicately  and  wisely,  both  as  judged 
by  its  intrinsic  merits  and,  still  more,  as  judged 
by  her  own  hitherto  revealed  abilities.  She  has 
told  her  story  simply,  directly,  and  forcibly,  with 
but  a  moderate  tendency  to  moralize,  and  quite 
an  artistic  perception  of  the  inherent  value  of 
her  facts.  A  profound  sense  of  the  beauty  of  the 
theme  impels  us  to  say  that  of  course  there  are 
many  points  in  which  she  might  have  done  better, 
and  to  express  our  regret  that,  since  the  story 
was  destined  to  be  written,  an  essentially  stronger 
pen  should  not  have  anticipated  the  task;  since, 
indeed,  the  history  of  a  wise  man's  soul  was  in 
question,  a  wise  man,  and  not  a  woman  some 
thing  less  than  wise,  should  have  undertaken  to 
relate  it.  In  such  a  case  certain  faulty-sketched 
episodes  would  have  been  more  satisfactory. 
That  of  Helen  Cardross's  intimacy  with  the  earl, 
for  instance,  would  probably  have  gained  largely 
in  dramatic  interest  by  the  suggestion  of  a  more 
delicate  sentiment  on  the  earl's  part  —  sensitive, 
imaginative,  manly-souled  as  he  is  represented  as 
being  —  than  that  of  a  grateful  nursling.  Such  a 
feat  was  doubtless  beyond  Miss  Muloch's  powers 
-  as  it  would  indeed  have  been  beyond  any 
woman's;  and  it  was,  therefore,  the  part  of  pru 
dence  not  to  attempt  it.  Another  weak  point  is 
the  very  undeveloped  state  of  the  whole  incident  of 

170 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

the  visit  of  the  earl's  insidious  kinsman.  If  this 
had  been  drawn  out  more  artistically,  it  would 
have  given  a  very  interesting  picture  of  the  moves 
and  counter-moves  about  the  helpless  nobleman's 
chair,  of  his  simple  friends  and  servants,  and  his 
subtle  cousin. 

Good  story-tellers,  however,  are  not  so  plenti 
ful  as  that  we  should  throw  aside  a  story  because 
it  is  told  with  only  partial  success.  When  was 
more  than  approximate  justice  ever  done  a  great 
subject?  In  view  of  this  general  truth,  we  gladly 
commend  Miss  Muloch  as  fairly  successful.  As 
suredly,  she  has  her  own  peculiar  merits.  If  she 
has  not  much  philosophy  nor  much  style,  she  has 
at  least  feeling  and  taste.  If  she  does  not  savor 
of  the  classics,  neither  does  she  savor  of  the  news 
papers.  If,  in  short,  she  is  not  George  Eliot  on 
the  one  hand,  neither  is  she  Miss  Braddon  on 
the  other.  Where  a  writer  is  so  transparently  a 
woman  as  she  and  the  last-named  lady  betray 
themselves  to  be,  it  matters  more  than  a  little 
what  kind  of  woman  she  is.  In  the  face  of  this 
circumstance,  the  simplicity,  the  ignorance,  the 
want  of  experience,  the  innocent  false  guesses 
and  inferences,  which,  in  severely  critical  moods, 
are  almost  ridiculous,  resolve  themselves  into 
facts  charming  and  even  sacred,  while  the  mascu 
line  cleverness,  the  social  omniscience,  which 
satisfy  the  merely  intellectual  exactions,  become 
an  almost  revolting  spectacle.  Miss  Muloch  is 
kindly,  somewhat  dull,  pious,  and  very  senti- 

171 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

mental  —  she  has  both  the  virtues  and  defects 
which  are  covered  by  the  untranslatable  French 
word  honnete.  Miss  Braddon  is  brilliant,  lively, 
ingenious,  and  destitute  of  a  ray  of  sentiment; 
and  we  should  never  dream  of  calling  her  honnete. 
And,  as  matters  stand  at  present,  to  say  that  we 
prefer  the  sentimental  school  to  the  other,  is 
simply  to  say  that  we  prefer  virtue  to  vice. 


172 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 


XXI 

Spictetus 

THE  present  edition  of  Epictetus,  as  the  title- 
page  affirms,  rests  upon  Mrs.  Carter's  trans 
lation,  which  was  published  in  a  clumsy  quarto  in 
1758.  On  comparing  the  two  versions,  we  find 
that  the  modifications  made  by  the  present  editor 
bear  chiefly  upon  the  undue  quaintness,  direct 
ness,  and  familiarity  of  Mrs.  Carter's  style.  They 
were  undertaken,  he  intimates,  with  the  hope 
of  popularizing  the  great  Stoic  moralist  among 
modern  readers.  It  is  a  significant  fact,  in  view 
of  this  intention,  that  the  present  version  has 
altogether  a  more  literary  air  than  Mrs.  Carter's 
own,  for  which,  to  judge  from  the  long  list  of  aris 
tocratic  subscribers  that  accompanies  it,  a  some 
what  exclusive  patronage  was  anticipated.  The 
difference  between  the  two  versions  is  not  very 
great,  but  it  has  seemed  to  us  that  the  altera 
tions  made  by  Mr.  Higginson  tend  to  substitute 
the  language  of  books  for  the  language  of  talk. 
This,  however,  is  but  as  it  should  be.  The  lan 
guage  of  talk  of  the  present  day  is  quite  as  literary 
as  the  language  of  books  of  a  hundred  years  ago. 

"The  Works  of  Epictetus."     By  Thomas  Wentworth  Hig- 
ginson.     Boston :   1865. 

173 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

How  far  under  these  new  auspices  Epictetus 
is  destined  to  become  familiar  to  modern  English 
readers  is  a  difficult  question  to  decide.  In  every 
attempted  resuscitation  of  an  old  author,  one  of 
two  things  is  either  expressly  or  tacitly  claimed 
for  him.  He  is  conceived  to  possess  either  an 
historical  or  an  intrinsic  interest.  He  is  intro 
duced  to  us  either  as  a  phenomenon,  an  object 
worthy  of  study  in  connection  with  a  particu 
lar  phase  of  civilization,  or  as  a  teacher,  an  ob 
ject  worthy  of  study  in  himself,  independently 
of  time  or  place.  In  one  case,  in  a  word,  he  is 
offered  us  as  a  means;  in  the  other  case  he  is  offered 
us  as  an  end.  To  become  popular  he  must  fulfil 
the  latter  condition.  The  question  suggested  by 
this  new  edition  of  Epictetus  is  whether  or  not 
he  is  susceptible  of  a  direct  modern  application. 
There  are  two  ways  of  answering  this  question. 
One  is  to  attempt  an  exposition  of  his  character, 
and,  with  the  reader's  sympathy,  to  deduce  thence 
our  reply.  The  other  is  to  give  our  opinion  at 
once,  and  then  to  proceed  to  justify  it  by  an  ex 
position  of  his  character.  We  select  the  latter 
course.  We  agree  with  the  editor,  then,  that  the 
teachings  of  Epictetus  possess  a  permanent  value, 
-  that  they  may  properly  form  at  least  one  de 
partment  in  a  modern  handbook  of  morals. 

Little  is  known  of  our  author's  life.  That  he 
was  a  Greek  by  birth;  that  he  lived  at  Rome  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  first  century;  that  he  was  a 
slave,  deformed  and  poor;  and  that  he  publicly 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

discussed  philosophy;  —  these  facts  make  up  all 
that  we  know  of  his  history.  But  these  are  as 
suredly  enough.  As  his  philosophy  was  avowedly 
a  matter  of  living  and  acting,  we  may  be  sure  — 
the  sympathetic  reader  of  his  Discourses  cannot 
but  be  sure  —  that  he  exemplified  it  in  his  own 
life  and  acts.  We  need  to  know  little  of  the  his 
tory  of  a  man  whose  theory  of  conduct  was  so 
explicit,  so  emphatic,  so  detailed.  There  is  in  his 
precepts,  possessing  them  even  as  we  do  at  sec 
ond  hand,  a  personal  accent,  a  tone  of  honesty,  of 
sincerity,  of  feeling,  —  an  expression,  so  to  speak, 
of  temperament,  —  which  gives  them  a  kind  of 
autobiographical  force.  Like  his  great  master, 
Socrates,  —  the  object  of  his  constant  and  almost 
religious  reference,  —  we  know  him  only  as  he 
stands  reported  by  a  disciple.  But  he  has  this 
advantage,  that  his  disciple  was  a  man  of  no  par 
ticular  originality.  A  thoroughly  earnest  man, 
moreover,  a  man  of  strong  personal  influence  and 
lively  idiosyncrasies,  such  as  Epictetus  must  have 
been,  may  often  be  more  successfully  represented 
by  another  than  by  himself.  In  an  age  when 
morals  and  metaphysics  were  taught  by  direct 
exhortation,  and  the  teacher's  authority  de 
pended  largely  upon  the  accordance  of  his  habits 
with  his  theories;  when  genius  was  reflected  as 
much  in  the  conduct  as  in  the  intellect,  and  was 
in  fact  measured  as  much  by  the  one  as  by  the 
other;  and  when  the  various  incidents  of  a  man's 
natural  disposition  —  that  whole  range  of  quali- 

'75 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

ties  which  in  the  present  day  are  held  to  be  quite 
impertinent  to  public  life  —  increased  or  dimin 
ished  the  force  of  his  precepts,  —  in  such  an  age 
it  is  probable  that  the  general  figure  of  a  philoso 
pher  was  in  the  eyes  of  his  disciples  a  very  vivid 
and  absolute  fact,  and,  provided  they  were  neither 
Xenophons  nor  Platos,  would  be  strictly  respected 
in  their  recollections  and  reports.  This  is  espe 
cially  likely  to  have  been  the  case  with  Epictetus, 
from  the  fact  that  he  was  a  Stoic.  The  Stoic 
philosophy  is  emphatically  a  practical  one,  a  rule 
of  life:  it  applies  to  the  day,  the  hour,  the  moment. 
As  represented  by  Epictetus  it  is  as  far  removed 
as  possible  from  metaphysics.  There  is,  there 
fore,  no  Stoicism  of  mere  principle.  And,  lastly, 
there  reigns  throughout  the  parts  of  Epictetus's 
Discourses  such  a  close  mutual  consistency  as  to 
fix  the  impression  that  his  life  was  thoroughly 
consistent  with  the  whole. 

Stoicism  is  the  most  absolute  and  uncomprom 
ising  system  of  morals  ever  accepted  by  man.  We 
say  system  of  morals,  because  it  is  in  effect  noth 
ing  of  a  philosophy.  It  is  a  stifling  of  philosophy, 
a  prohibition  of  inquiry.  It  declares  a  man's 
happiness  to  be  wholly  in  his  own  hands,  to  be 
identical  with  the  strength  of  his  will,  to  consist 
in  a  certain  parti-pris  of  self-control,  steadfastly 
maintained.  It  teaches  the  absolute  supremacy 
of  virtue,  —  its  superiority  to  health,  riches, 
honor,  and  prosperity.  Virtue  consists  in  a  state 
of  moral  satisfaction  with  those  things  which 

176 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

reason  tells  us  are  in  our  power,  and  in  a  sublime 
independence  of  those  things  which  are  not  in  our 
power.  It  is  not  in  our  power  to  be  rich,  to  be 
free,  to  be  sound  of  body.  But  it  is  in  our  power 
to  be  resigned  to  poverty,  slavery,  and  sickness. 
It  is  in  our  power  to  live  philosophically;  /.  e.,  pa 
tiently,  passively,  in  conscious  accordance  with 
the  divine  part  of  our  nature.  It  is  easy  to  un 
derstand  the  efficacy  of  such  a  doctrine  as  this 
in  the  age  of  Nero  and  Domitian,  before  Chris 
tianity  had  had  time  to  suggest  that  virtue  is  not 
necessarily  a  servitude,  and  that  the  true  condi 
tion  of  happiness  is  freedom.  In  that  age  the 
only  hope  of  mankind  was  in  the  virgin  human 
will.  Epictetus  never  once  intimates  the  existence 
of  an  idea  of  rights.  On  the  contrary,  his  whole 
theory  of  those  things  which  are  not  in  our  power 
is  inconsistent  with  such  an  idea.  In  his  view, 
the  conditions  of  humanity  are  permanently  fixed. 
Life  is  beset  on  every  side  with  poverty  and  suffer 
ing.  Slavery  is  an  accepted  fact.  Every  man  is 
subject,  as  a  matter  of  course,  to  certain  visita 
tions  of  cruelty  and  injustice.  These  are  so  in 
evitable,  so  much  a  law  of  the  universe,  that  we 
must  regulate  our  lives  accordingly.  To  declaim 
against  them,  to  resist  them,  to  deny  them,  is  out 
of  the  question.  Our  duty  is  to  accept  them  in 
order  that  we  may  properly  reject  them.  Our 
own  persons  are  the  field  of  this  operation.  Over 
them  we  have  no  power;  but  over  ourselves  we 
have  an  absolute  mastery,  that  is,  over  our  true 

177 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

selves;  not  this  contemptible  carcass,  these  perish 
able  limbs,  this  fleeting  life,  —  nothing  so  simple 
as  that;  and  yet,  if  we  would  but  perceive  it,  some 
thing  infinitely  more  simple,  —  the  self-contained, 
unencumbered  faculty  of  reason.  Within  our 
own  souls  we  reign  supreme.  Cruelty  and  injus 
tice  may  invade  our  bodies;  the  Stoic  quietly 
awaits  them  on  the  threshold  of  his  reason,  arrests 
their  progress,  turns  them  to  naught,  and  covers 
them  with  confusion.  "You  may  hurt  me,"  he 
says,  "if  you  can,  that  is,  if  I  will.  I  am  only 
hurt  so  far  as  I  heed  my  injuries;  but  I  will  not 
heed  them.  I  have  better  things  to  think  of,  - 
the  providence  of  God,  his  wisdom,  power,  and 
beauty,  and  this  god-like  principle,  my  own  nature, 
from  which  I  derive  courage,  modesty,  and  re 
ligion.  You  may  hurt  me  and  misuse  me,  and 
much  good  may  it  do  you.  It  will  indeed  gratify 
you,  inasmuch  as  for  you  it  is  I  that  you  perse 
cute;  but  for  me,  who  am  the  proper  judge,  I 
would  have  you  know,  it  is  not  I,  but  this  miser 
able  body,  to  which  you  are  welcome." 

The  age  in  which  this  attitude  of  mind  was  a 
refuge,  a  rest,  a  relief,  the  fruit  of  a  philosophy, 
is  an  age  which  we  cannot  adequately  conceive 
without  a  strong  intellectual  effort.  And  we  must 
remember  that  men  would  not  have  assumed 
it,  if,  in  spite  of  its  apparent  difficulties,  it  had 
not  opened  the  wisest  course.  Aux  grands  maux 
les  grands  remedes.  When  injustice  was  on  the 
heroic  scale,  submission  had  to  be  on  the  heroic 

178 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

scale  too.  Such  were  the  consolations  of  a  Ro 
manized  world.  In  a  brutal  age  virtue  is  brutal 
as  well  as  vice;  and,  indeed,  we  read  the  moral  de 
pression  engendered  by  the  Roman  decline  more 
clearly  in  these  utterances  of  a  reactionary  piety 
than  in  any  record  of  the  flagrant  profligacy  of  the 
time.  When  this  was  the  last  word  of  honest 
Paganism,  it  was  high  time  that  Christianity 
should  arrive;  for  if  vice  called  for  a  reform,  vir 
tue  called  for  it  equally.  Christianity  was  needed 
to  correct  the  Roman  spirit,  generally,  —  in  its 
good  as  well  as  in  its  evil  manifestations.  It  was 
needed  to  teach  the  respect  of  weakness.  The 
Stoicism  of  Epictetus  is  in  its  uncompromising 
sternness,  its  harshness,  its  one-sidedness,  its  lack 
of  imagination,  a  thoroughly  Roman  principle. 
It  rests  upon  common  sense.  It  adapts  itself  to 
only  one  stand-point,  and  betrays  no  suspicion 
of  the  needs  of  a  character  different  from  that  of 
its  teacher.  Common  sense,  in  the  character  of  a 
kind  of  deus  ex  machina,  has  often  undertaken  the 
solution  of  complex  philosophical  problems;  but 
it  has  solved  them  only  by  cutting  the  knot. 

Stoicism,  then,  is  essentially  unphilosophic.  It 
simplifies  human  troubles  by  ignoring  half  of 
them.  It  is  a  wilful  blindness,  a  constant  begging 
of  the  question.  It  fosters  apathy  and  paralyzes 
the  sensibilities.  It  is  through  our  sensibilities 
that  we  suffer,  but  it  is  through  them,  too,  that 
we  enjoy;  and  when,  by  a  practical  annihilation 
of  the  body,  the  soul  is  rendered  inaccessible  to 

179 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

pain,  it  is  likewise  rendered  both  inaccessible  and 
incompetent  to  real  pleasure,  —  to  the  pleasure 
of  action;  for  the  source  of  half  its  impressions, 
the  medium  of  its  constant  expression,  the  condi 
tion  of  human  reciprocity,  has  been  destroyed. 
Stoicism  is  thus  a  negation  of  the  possibility  of 
progress.  If  the  world,  taken  at  a  given  moment, 
were  destined  to  maintain  all  its  relations  un 
changed  forevermore,  then  the  doctrine  in  ques 
tion  would  be  the  best  theory  of  life  within  human 
attainment.  But  as  to  the  modern  mind,  there  is 
always  a  possible  future  in  which  to  lodge  the 
fulfilment  of  impossible  ideals;  for,  besides  our 
principle  of  Christian  faith,  there  exists  for  the 
things  of  this  world  a  kindred  principle  of  Chris 
tian  hope,  Stoicism  seems,  at  the  present  day,  to 
imply  an  utter  social  immobility.  And  if  the 
majority  of  mankind  became  Stoics,  it  is  certain 
that  social  immobility  would  ensue  as  the  result 
of  so  general  an  assumption  of  passivity.  The 
grand  defect  of  the  system  is,  that  it  discourages 
all  responsibility  to  anything  but  one's  own  soul. 
There  is  a  somewhat  apocryphal  anecdote  of 
Epictetus  having  said  to  his  master,  Epaphroditus, 
as  the  latter  was  about  to  put  his  leg  into  the  tor 
ture,  "You  will  break  my  leg";  and,  when  in  a 
few  moments  this  result  was  accomplished,  of  his 
having  quietly  added,  "Did  not  I  tell  you  so?" 
It  would  be  easy  to  quote  this  anecdote  as  an  ex 
ample  of  great  nobleness  of  soul.  But,  on  reflec 
tion,  we  see  that  it  reveals,  from  our  modern  point 

1 80 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

of  view,  an  astounding  moral  degradation.  It 
assuredly  does  not  diminish  our  respect  for  Epic 
tetus,  any  more  than  the  tub  of  Diogenes  dimin 
ishes  our  respect  for  him;  but  it  sets  inflexible 
limits  to  our  consideration  for  the  spirit  by  which 
a  noble  nature  was  so  enslaved.  There  is  no  doubt 
that,  on  its  own  ground,  Pagan  brutality  was  best 
refuted  by  such  means  as  these.  But  it  is  equally 
certain  that  such  means  as  these  are  possible  only 
to  spirits  tainted  by  the  evils  which  they  deplore. 
It  is  against  the  experience  of  such  evils  that  they 
react;  but  as  long  as  the  battle  is  fought  on  the  old 
ground,  the  reactionists  only  half  secure  our  sym 
pathy.  To  future  ages  they  have  too  much  in 
common  with  their  oppressors.  It  is  only  when 
the  circle  is  broken,  when  the  reaction  is  leavened 
by  a  wholly  new  element,  that  it  seems  to  us  to 
justify  itself.  The  taint  of  Epictetus  is  the  taint 
of  slavery. 

Mr.  Higginson  tells  us,  in  his  Preface,  that  these 
Discourses  were  the  favorite  reading  of  Toussaint 
1'Ouverture.  When  we  add  this  fact  to  the  fact 
that  Epictetus  was  himself  a  slave,  —  when  we 
view,  in  connection,  the  affinity  with  these  prin 
ciples  of  two  minds  elevated,  indeed,  by  the  senti 
ment  of  liberty,  but  in  a  measure  debased  by  the 
practice  of  servitude,  —  we  shall  approach  a  per 
ception  of  the  ignoble  side  of  Stoicism.  It  has 
occurred  to  us  that  we  might  realize  it  in  the  fol 
lowing  fashion.  Let  us  imagine  a  negro  slave, 
under  our  former  Southern  dispensation,  keenly 

181 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

conscious  of  all  the  indignities  of  his  position, 
and  with  an  intellect  of  exceptional  power,  dog 
matically  making  the  best  of  them,  preaching 
indifference  to  them,  and  concluding,  in  fact, 
that  weariness  and  blows  and  plantation  fare  are 
rather  good  things,  —  we  shall  so  take  home  to  our 
minds  the  didactic  character  of  Epictetus. 

To  the  vivacity,  the  consistency,  the  intensity 
of  belief,  the  uncompromising  frankness  of  speech 
with  which  this  character  is  maintained,  we  can 
not  pay  too  large  a  tribute  of  respect.  He  must 
have  been  a  wholesome  spectacle  in  that  diseased 
age,  this  free-thinking,  plain-speaking  old  man, 
a  slave  and  a  cripple,  sturdily  scornful  of  idleness, 
luxury,  timidity,  false  philosophy,  and  all  power 
and  pride  of  place,  and  sternly  reverent  of  purity, 
temperance,  and  piety,  —  one  of  the  few  upright 
figures  in  the  general  decline.  Of  the  universal 
corruption  and  laxity  of  character  and  will  he  is 
keenly,  almost  pathetically,  sensible.  "Show  me 
some  one  person,'*  he  exclaims,  "formed  accord 
ing  to  the  principles  which  he  professes.  Show  me 
one  who  is  sick,  and  happy;  in  danger,  and  happy; 
dying,  and  happy;  exiled,  and  happy;  disgraced, 
and  happy.  Show  him  to  me;  for,  by  Heaven,  I 
long  to  see  a  Stoic.  ...  Do  me  this  favor.  Do 
not  refuse  an  old  man  a  sight  which  he  has  never 
seen.  .  .  .  Let  any  of  you  show  me  a  human  soul, 
desiring  to  be  in  unity  with  God;  not  to  accuse 
either  God  or  man;  not  to  be  angry;  not  to  be  en 
vious;  not  to  be  jealous;  in  a  word,  desiring  from 

182 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

a  man  to  become  a  god,  and  in  this  poor,  mortal 
body  aiming  to  have  fellowship  with  Zeus.  Show 
him  to  me.  But  you  cannot."  No  indeed,  they 
could  not.  And  yet  very  little  of  the  energy  of 
Epictetus  goes  to  merely  deploring  and  lament 
ing  the  immorality  about  him.  He  is  indefati 
gable  in  reproving,  contradicting,  and  what  we 
should  now-a-days  call  snubbing,  his  auditors 
and  interlocutors;  in  reminding  them  of  their 
duties,  in  shaming  them  out  of  their  foibles  and 
vices.  He  is  a  merciless  critic  of  all  theorists, 
logicians,  and  rhetoricians,  —  of  all  who  fail  to 
take  the  very  highest  ground  in  regard  to  the 
duties  of  a  man,  and  who  teach  the  conscience  to 
satisfy  itself  with  a  form  of  words.  He  himself 
has  no  need  of  theories;  his  five  senses  teach  him 
all  he  wants  to  know.  "Have  these  things  no 
weight?"  he  asks.  "Let  a  Pyrrhonist  or  an 
Academic  come  and  oppose  them.  For  my  part, 
I  have  neither  leisure  nor  ability  to  stand  up  as 
advocate  for  common  sense.  ...  I  may  not  be 
able  to  explain  how  sensation  takes  place,  whether 
it  be  diffused  universally  or  reside  in  a  particular 
part,  for  I  find  perplexities  in  either  case;  but 
that  you  and  I  are  not  the  same  person,  I  very 
exactly  know."  Like  most  men  of  a  deep  moral 
sense,  he  is  not  at  all  inquisitive;  he  feels  very 
little  curiosity  concerning  the  phenomena  of  the 
external  world.  From  beginning  to  end  of  his 
Discourses,  there  is  no  hint  of  a  theory  of  nature, 
of  being,  or  of  the  universe.  He  is  ready  to  take 

183 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

all  these  things  as  they  come,  as  the  work  of  the 
gods,  and  as  adding,  in  their  marvellous  beauty 
and  complexity,  to  the  debt  we  owe  the  gods. 
But  they  are  no  concern  of  his.  His  business  is 
with  human  nature,  with  the  elevation  of  human 
character  to  the  divine  ideal.  To  our  perception 
he  is  very  weak  as  a  logician,  although  he  con 
stantly  claims  to  arrive  at  truth  and  wisdom  by 
a  severe  exercise  of  the  reasoning  faculty.  His 
nature  is  pre-eminently  a  religious  one;  and  it  is 
when  he  speaks  under  the  impulse  of  feeling,  and 
with  a  certain  accent  of  passion,  that  he  is  most 
worth  quoting  and  remembering.  There  are  mo 
ments  when  he  talks  very  much  as  a  modern 
Christian  would  talk.  "What  else  can  I  do,  a 
lame  old  man,  but  sing  hymns  to  God?  .  .  .  Since 
I  am  a  reasonable  creature,  it  is  my  duty  to  praise 
God.  This  is  my  business.  I  do  it.  Nor  will  I 
ever  desert  this  post  so  long  as  it  is  permitted  me; 
and  I  call  upon  you  to  join  in  the  same  song." 
Epictetus  praises  God  because  he  is  a  reasonable 
creature;  but  what  he  calls  reason,  we  should,  in 
many  cases,  call  faith.  His  sense  of  a  Divine 
presence  in  human  affairs  never,  indeed,  rises  to 
enthusiasm  or  to  ecstasy;  but  it  is,  nevertheless, 
very  far  removed  from  the  common  sense  on  which, 
in  treating  of  our  attitude  towards  the  things 
of  this  life,  he  invariably  takes  his  stand.  Reli 
gious  natures  are  of  no  particular  time,  and  of 
no  particular  faith.  The  piety  of  Epictetus  was 
a  religious  instinct  as  pure  as  the  devotion  of  a 

184 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

Christian  saint;  that  is,  it  did  for  him  the  most 
that  religion  can  do  for  any  man,  —  it  enabled  him 
to  live  hopefully  in  the  midst  of  a  miserable  world. 
It  enabled  him  to  do  so,  indeed,  only  through  the 
exercise  of  a  force  of  will  of  which  few  Christian 
saints  have  probably  felt  the  need;  for  they  have 
rested  their  hopes  on  a  definite  assurance. 

The  great  value  of  these  Discourses,  then,  to 
our  perception,  is  not  in  their  philosophy,  —  for, 
in  strictness,  they  have  none,  —  but  in  the  re 
flection  they  offer  of  their  author's  character. 
Intellectually  he  was  no  genius,  —  he  was,  if  we 
may  use  the  expression,  very  slightly  intellectual; 
he  was  without  curiosity,  without  science,  with 
out  imagination,  —  the  element  which  lends  so 
great  a  charm  to  the  writings  of  that  other  Stoic, 
Marcus  Aurelius.  He  was  simply  a  moralist;  he 
had  a  genius  for  virtue.  He  was  intensely  a  man 
among  men,  an  untiring  observer,  and  a  good  deal 
of  a  satirist.  It  was  by  the  life  of  his  style  that  he 
acted  upon  his  immediate  disciples,  and  it  is  by 
the  same  virtue,  outlasting  almost  two  thou 
sand  years  and  a  transformation  into  our  mod 
ern  speech,  that  he  will  act  upon  the  readers  of 
to-day.  When  moral  nobleness  finds  solid  expres 
sion,  there  is  no  limit  to  its  duration  or  its  influ 
ence.  Epictetus  dealt  with  crude  human  nature, 
which  is  the  same  in  Christians  and  Pagans,  in 
men  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  men  of  the 
first.  In  every  doctrine  there  are  good  and  bad 
possibilities,  —  there  is  a  good  and  a  bad  Stoicism. 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

But  a  literal  Stoicism  our  present  social  conditions 
render,  to  say  the  least,  difficult.  For  the  majority 
of  mankind  society  is  tender  rather  than  harsh. 
We  have  no  longer  to  hold  out  our  necks  to  unjust 
persecutors,  to  bow  our  heads  to  gratuitous  in 
sults,  to  wrap  our  human  nakedness  in  our  simple 
virtue.  This  is  not  an  heroic  age,  and  it  becomes 
daily  more  difficult  to  be  gracefully  proud.  We, 
therefore,  with  less  danger  than  earlier  genera 
tions  may  accept  and  apply  Epictetus.  Such  ac 
ceptance,  indeed,  as  he  may  receive  at  our  hands 
would  hardly  answer  his  desires,  and  would  be  but 
another  instance  of  the  unceremonious  avidity 
with  which  the  present  fashions  the  past  to  its 
needs.  The  good  a  man  does  the  world  depends 
as  much  on  the  way  the  world  takes  him  as  on 
the  way  he  offers  himself.  Let  us  take  Epictetus 
as  we  take  all  things  in  these  critical  days,  eclec- 
tically.  Let  us  take  what  suits  us,  and  leave  what 
does  not  suit  us.  There  is  no  doubt  but  we  shall 
find  much  to  our  purpose;  for  we  still  suffer,  and 
as  long  as  we  suffer  we  must  act  a  part. 

"I  am  acquainted  with  no  book/'  says  Mr. 
Higginson,  "in  which  the  inevitable  laws  of  ret 
ribution  are  more  grandly  stated,  with  less  of 
merely  childish  bribery  or  threatening."  The 
reader  of  Epictetus  will  easily  discover  what  is 
meant  by  this,  and  will  decide  that,  explain  it  by 
Stoicism  or  any  other  name  one  may  choose,  it 
is  for  this  fact  that  our  author  is  pre-eminently 
valuable.  That  no  gain  can  make  up  for  the  loss 

1 86 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

of  virtue  is  an  old  story,  but  Epictetus  makes  it 
new.  What  is  the  punishment,  he  inquires,  of 
craven  spirits?  "To  be  as  they  are."  "Paris, 
they  say,"  to  quote  from  another  chapter,  "was 
undone  when  the  Greeks  invaded  Troy  and  laid 
it  waste,  and  his  family  were  slain  in  battle.  By 
no  means;  for  no  one  is  undone  by  an  action  not 
his  own.  .  .  .  His  true  undoing  was  when  he  lost 
modesty,  faith,  honor,  virtue.  When  was  Achilles 
undone?  When  Patroclus  died?  By  no  means. 
But  when  he  gave  himself  up  to  rage."  And  in 
another  place:  "I  lost  my  lamp  because  the  thief 
was  better  at  keeping  awake  than  I.  But  for 
that  lamp  he  paid  the  price  of  becoming  a  thief, 
for  that  lamp  he  lost  his  virtue  and  became  like  a 
wild  beast.  This  seemed  to  him  a  good  bargain; 
and  so  let  it  be!"  And  in  still  another:  "Is  there 
not  a  divine  and  inevitable  law,  which  exacts  the 
greatest  punishments  from  those  who  are  guilty 
of  the  greatest  offences?  For  what  says  this  law? 
Let  him  who  claims  what  belongs  not  to  him  be 
arrogant,  be  vainglorious,  be  base,  be  a  slave;  let 
him  grieve,  let  him  envy,  let  him  pity;  and,  in  a 
word,  let  him  lament  and  be  miserable."  "  That 
he  is  unhappy"  he  says  elsewhere,  "is  an  addition 
every  one  must  make  for  himself."  This  is  good 
Stoicism;  and  to  bear  it  well  in  mind  is  neither 
more  nor  less,  for  us  moderns,  than  to  apply 
Epictetus. 


187 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 


XXII 

Victor  Hugo' s  J^jist 

ELIGION,  society,  and  nature,"  says  M. 
Victor  Hugo  in  his  preface,  "such  are  the 
three  struggles  of  man.  .  .  .  Man  deals  with  diffi 
culty  under  the  form  superstition,  under  the  form 
prejudice,  and  under  the  form  element.  A  triple 
ananke  weighs  upon  us:  the  anank'e  of  dogmas, 
the  ananke  of  laws,  the  ananke  of  things.  In 
*  Notre  Dame  de  Paris'  the  author  has  denounced 
the  first;  in  'Les  Miserables'  he  has  pointed  out 
the  second;  in  the  present  work  he  indicates  the 
third." 

Great  programmes  and  intentions,  even  though 
they  be  a  posteriori,  are  one  of  M.  Victor  Hugo's 
liveliest  characteristics.  It  will,  therefore,  not 
surprise  any  of  his  old  readers  to  find  him  calling 
what  a  writer  less  fond  of  magnificent  generali 
zations  would  have  been  content  to  describe  as 
"a  tale  of  the  sea",  a  picture  of  "the  ananke  of 
things."  But  M.  Victor  Hugo  is  a  poet,  and  he 
embarks  upon  the  deep  in  a  very  different  spirit 
from  the  late  Captain  Marryat.  '  He  carries  with 
him  provisions  for  a  voyage  all  but  interminable; 

"Les  Travailleurs  de  la  Mer."  By  Victor  Hugo.  New 
York:  1866. 

188 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

he  touches  at  foreign  lands  whose  existence  has 
never  been  suspected;  and  he  makes  discoveries 
of  almost  fabulous  importance. 

The  scene  of  "Les  Travailleurs  de  la  Mer"  is 
laid  in  M.  Hugo's  adopted  home  of  Guernsey,  or 
rather  in  great  part  in  —  yes,  literally  in  —  the 
circumjacent  ocean.  The  story  is  a  very  small 
one  in  spite  of  its  enormous  distensions  and  infla 
tions.  An  inhabitant  of  the  island,  the  proprietor 
of  a  very  pretty  niece,  becomes  also  proprietor,  in 
the  early  days  of  the  invention,  of  a  very  pretty 
steamer,  with  which  he  establishes  communica 
tion  with  the  coast  of  France.  He  employs  as 
captain  one  Sieur  Clubin,  a  man  long  noted  on  the 
island  for  his  exquisite  probity  and  virtue.  One 
of  his  chief  recommendations  to  the  esteem  of  his 
employer  is  the  fact  that  in  former  years,  when 
the  latter  had  admitted  to  partnership  a  person 
of  doubtful  antecedents,  by  name  Rantaine,  he 
had,  out  of  the  fulness  of  his  integrity,  divined 
this  gentleman's  rascality,  and  had  forewarned 
his  master  that  some  fine  day  Rantaine  would 
decamp  with  the  cash-box.  This  catastrophe  is, 
indeed,  not  slow  in  happening.  Rantaine  sud 
denly  departs  for  regions  unknown,  taking  with 
him  fifty  thousand  francs  more  than  his  share  of 
the  capital.  These  three  persons,  Lethierry,  the 
proprietor  of  the  steamer,  Rantaine,  and  the  cap 
tain,  Clubin,  are  all  described  with  a  minuteness 
very  disproportionate  to  any  part  they  play  in 
the  story.  But  when  M.  Victor  Hugo  picks  up  a 

189 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

supernumerary  he  is  not  wont  to  set  him  down 
until  he  has  bedecked  him  with  more  epigrams, 
anecdotes,  formulas,  and  similes  than  would  fur 
nish  forth  a  dozen  ordinary  heroes.  Lethierry  is 
famous  for  his  alacrity  in  rescuing  the  victims  of 
shipwrecks.  In  heavy  weather  he  paces  the  shore, 
scanning  the  horizon,  and  if  he  descries  a  craft  of 
any  species  or  degree  in  need  of  assistance,  he  is 
soon  seen  from  afar  "upright  on  the  vessel,  drip 
ping  with  rain,  mingled  with  the  lightning,  with 
the  face  of  a  lion  who  should  have  a  mane  of  sea- 
foam."  After  a  day  spent  in  this  exercise,  he  goes 
home  and  knits  a  pair  of  stockings.  He  was  a 
savage,  says  the  author,  but  he  had  his  elegances. 
The  chief  of  these  is  that  he  is  very  fastidious 
about  women's  hands.  The  reason  that  he  had 
never  married  was  probably  that  he  had  never 
found  a  pretty  enough  pair  of  hands  in  his  own 
station  of  life.  He  brings  up  his  niece,  Deru- 
chette,  to  take  care,  above  all  things,  of  her 
hands.  About  this  young  lady  M.  Hugo  says  an 
enormous  number  of  extravagant  and  pretty 
things.  We  all  know  what  to  expect,  however, 
when  M.  Hugo  enters  upon  the  chapter  jeune 
fille.  "To  have  a  smile",  he  says  at  the  close  of  a 
rhapsody  on  this  subject,  "which,  one  knows  not 
how,  lightens  the  weight  of  the  enormous  chain 
dragged  in  common  by  all  the  living,  is  —  what 
else  can  I  call  it  but  divine?  Deruchette  had  this 
smile.  We  will  say  more.  Deruchette  was  this 
smile."  Rantaine,  the  villain,  is  a  most  formid- 

190 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

able  creature.  He  is  a  mass  of  incongruities.  He 
has  been  everywhere  and  everything.  "He  was 
capable  of  all  things,  and  of  worse."  "He  had 
passed  his  life  in  making  eclipses  —  appearing, 
disappearing,  re-appearing.  He  was  a  rascal  with 
a  revolving  light/'  "He  used  to  say,  'Je  suis 
pour  les  mceurs' •  -I  go  in  for  morals."  Sieur 
Clubin  is  the  reverse  of  Rantaine.  His  life  is  all 
above-board.  He  is  piety,  honesty,  decency  in 
carnate.  To  suspect  him  is  to  make  one's  self 
suspected.  He  is  like  the  ermine;  he  would  die  of 
a  stain.  As  we  have  said,  he  sails  the  little  steamer 
from  Guernsey  to  Saint  Malo.  One  of  his  idio- 
syncracies  is  never  to  forget  a  face  he  has  seen. 
At  the  latter  place,  accordingly,  he  recognizes 
after  a  number  of  years  the  ci-devant  humbug, 
Rantaine.  He  procures  a  revolver,  surprises  him 
on  the  cliff,  just  after  (unfortunately,  as  you 
might  say)  he  has  confirmed  his  identity  by  push 
ing  a  coast-guard  over  into  the  sea;  he  faces  him, 
and  coolly  demands  a  restitution  of  the  fifty  thou 
sand  francs.  Such  is  his  address  that  the  for 
midable  Rantaine  complies  like  a  child,  and  hands 
over  the  little  box  containing  the  money.  Find 
ing  a  surplus  of  ten  thousand  francs,  Clubin  re 
turns  them,  pockets  the  balance,  and  dismisses 
the  criminal.  All  that  Clubin  desires  is  to  restore 
to  his  impoverished  employer  his  dues.  Forth 
with,  accordingly,  he  gets  up  steam,  and  departs 
for  Guernsey,  with  his  fifty  thousand  francs  se 
cured  in  a  belt  about  his  waist.  On  the  Guernsey 

191 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

coast,  however,  the  steamer  enters  a  heavy  fog, 
which  soon  obscures  all  progress;  and  to  make 
matters  worse  at  this  critical  moment,  the  pilot 
is  drunk.  The  captain  takes  the  helm  and  ad 
vances  boldly  through  the  fog.  But  a  sudden 
break  in  the  sky  shows  the  vessel  to  be  close  upon 
a  terrible  shoal,  and  before  it  can  be  avoided  a 
terrific  shock  indicates  that  the  steamer  has 
struck.  The  passengers  are  huddled  into  a  boat, 
but  the  captain,  who  has  conducted  himself 
throughout  with  admirable  presence  of  mind, 
announces  his  intention  of  remaining  with  the 
vessel  until  it  goes  down.  This  ideal  of  heroism 
is  vainly  combated;  the  boat  moves  away,  and 
the  disinterested  Clubin  is  left  alone  with  the 
ocean,  the  wreck,  and  —  do  you  see  the  point  ?  - 
the  fifty  thousand  francs.  Doubtless,  you  do  not 
see  it  yet;  for,  in  the  first  place,  the  Sieur  Clubin 
cannot  use  the  money  if  he  will,  and  then,  as  we 
know,  he  would  not  if  he  could.  But  here  comes 
a  grand  coup  de  theatre^  one  of  M.  Hugo's  own. 
What  if  the  virtuous  Clubin  should,  after  all,  be 
no  better  than  the  iniquitous  Rantaine,  no  better 
than  a  life-long  hypocrite,  the  would-be  murderer 
of  a  shipload  of  innocents? 

The  author  develops  this  hypothesis  in  a  won 
derful  chapter  entitled  "The  Interior  of  a  Soul 
Illumined."  A  very  dark  soul  indeed  is  this  of 
Clubin,  needing  all  the  rockets  and  bonfires  of 
M.  Hugo's  speech  to  penetrate  its  dusky  recesses. 
Left  alone  on  the  dreadful  ocean,  this  monstrous 

192 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

being  bursts  into  a  wicked  laugh.  He  folds  his 
arms  and  tastes  his  solitude.  He  is  free,  he  is 
rich,  he  has  succeeded.  Now  he  is  going  to  begin. 
He  has  "eliminated  the  world."  " There  are 
caverns  in  the  hypocrite/'  adds  the  author;  "or 
rather,  the  whole  hypocrite  is  a  single  cavern. 
When  Clubin  found  himself  alone  his  cavern 
opened.  He  ventilated  his  soul."  "He  had 
been",  we  furthermore  read,  "the  Tantalus  of 
cynicism."  He  now  looks  upon  his  honesty  as  a 
serpent  looks  upon  his  old  skin;  and  as  he  does  so 
he  laughs  a  second  time.  But  in  these  delights  he 
does  not  forget  the  practical.  His  plan  is  to  swim 
ashore  (he  is  a  marvellous  swimmer),  to  remain 
hidden  on  the  coast  until  a  smuggling  vessel  picks 
him  up,  and  then  to  make  his  way  to  America. 
His  exultation,  however,  is  but  short-lived.  As 
he  looks  the  fog  is  rent  in  twain,  and  he  sees  that 
he  has  lost  his  way  more  effectually  than  he  had 
intended.  The  fog  has  served  him  but  too  well. 
He  has  not  struck  the  small  shoal  which  he  had, 
as  he  fancied,  steered  for,  but  a  much  larger  one 
further  distant  from  the  shore.  Instead  of  having 
a  mile  to  swim,  he  has  fifteen.  Nevertheless  he 
strips  and  plunges.  As  he  touches  bottom  he 
feels  his  foot  seized.  Meanwhile  the  small  boat 
has  been  picked  up  by  a  sloop,  and  the  passengers 
have  brought  the  evil  tidings  into  the  port  of 
Saint  Sampson.  The  good  proprietor  of  the 
steamer  is  overwhelmed  with  grief  for  the  loss  of 
his  precious,  his  unique,  his  laboriously  wrought 

193 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

machinery.  It  is  suggested,  however,  that  it  may 
still  be  recovered,  that  it  may  be  disengaged  from 
the  double  embrace  of  the  wreck  and  the  rocks, 
and  successfully  brought  ashore.  Whereupon 
Miss  Deruchette  steps  forth  and  declares  that  she 
will  marry  the  man  who  shall  accomplish  this 
herculean  labor.  Now  this  young  lady  has  long 
been  adored  in  silence  by  a  young  amateur  of  the 
ocean,  a  strange,  brooding,  melancholy,  ill-reputed 
fellow,  a  kind  of  amphibious  Werther,  whose  only 
outlet  for  his  passion  has  been,  for  a  number  of 
years,  to  serenade  his  mistress  with  an  instrument 
which  M.  Hugo  repeatedly  denominates  a  "bug- 
pipe."  He  accepts  the  challenge,  and  straightway 
betakes  himself,  alone  and  unaided,  to  the  fatal 
shoal  between  which  the  hapless  vessel  stands 
wedged.  Here  begins  M.  Hugo's  version  of  the 
struggle  of  man  with  the  elements,  "the  ananke 
of  things"  promised  in  his  preface,  and  a  wonder 
ful  version  it  is. 

The  whole  of  the  second  book  is  devoted  to  the 
labors  of  this  new  Hercules  in  wrenching  with  his 
single  hands  the  machinery  of  the  steamer  from 
the  angry  clutch  of  nature.  Gilliatt  (such  is  the 
hero's  name)  encamps  upon  the  summit  of  a  great 
rock  hard  by  the  field  of  his  operations,  one  of  a 
brace  of  strong  brothers  which  just  hold  their 
chins  out  of  water.  Here,  under  the  stars,  sur 
rounded  by  the  world  of  waves,  he  spends  the 
nights  of  two  long  months,  during  which,  through 
hurricane  and  cold  and  fever  and  hunger,  thirst, 

194 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

and  despair,  he  gradually,  by  a  combination  of 
cranks  and  cross-beams  and  pulleys  which,  we 
doubt  not,  are  as  admirably  self-consistent  as  the 
famous  camel  which  the  German  philosopher 
evolved  from  the  depths  of  his  moral  conscious 
ness,  he  finally,  we  say,  disenthralls  the  machin 
ery  from  the  shattered  authority  of  the  wreck. 
To  believe  so  big  a  story  you  must  understand 
what  an  extraordinary  personage  was  this  Gilliatt. 
M.  Hugo  has  smoothed  the  way  by  a  full  analysis 
of  his  nature  and  habits  at  the  opening  of  the 
work;  but  we  protest  in  all  gravity  that  we  utterly 
fail  to  comprehend  him.  Physically,  he  is  of 
those  days  when  there  were  giants;  morally,  he  is 
the  product  of  too  much  reading  of  M.  de  Lamar- 
tine,  Alfred  de  Musset,  and  M.  Victor  Hugo  him 
self.  "La  somme"  says  the  author,  "he  was 
simply  a  poor  man  who  knew  how  to  read  and 
write."  Elsewhere,  he  is  "a  great  troubled  mind 
and  a  great  wild  heart."  He  has  thus  a  certain 
affiliation  with  Mr.  Carlyle.  Again,  while  he  is 
defying  the  tempests  and  tides  for  the  love  of 
Deruchette,  he  is  "a  kind  of  Job  of  the  ocean. 
But  a  Job  militant,  a  Job  conqueror,  a  Job  Prome 
theus."  There  is  a  vast  deal  in  this  long  descrip 
tion  of  his  daily  battle  with  the  elements  which 
we  should  like  to  quote,  had  we  the  space.  A 
great  deal  we  should  quote  for  the  reader's  amuse 
ment;  but  for  a  few  passages  we  should  expect  his 
admiration.  Never,  we  believe,  has  mere  writing 
gone  so  far:  that  is,  never  was  nature  so  effectually 

'95 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

ousted  from  its  place,  in  its  own  nominal  interest. 
We  have  room  only  for  half-a-dozen  sentences 
relative  to  Gilliatt's  adventure  with  a  certain 
hideous  marine  animal,  called  by  M.  Hugo  the 
pieuvre:  an  enlarged  jelly-fish,  with  tentacles,  and 
eyes  of  hideous  expression.  This  obscene  creature 
will  become  famous  through  M.  Hugo's  magnifi 
cent  hyperbole.  "Compared  with  the  pieuvre" 
he  says,  "the  old  hydras  provoke  a  smile.  Homer 
and  Hesiod  could  only  make  the  Chimaera.  God 
has  made  the  pieuvre.  When  God  wishes,  he  ex 
cels  in  the  execrable." 

The  author  then  proceeds  with  solemn  iteration 
to  rehearse  all  the  monsters,  fabulous  and  veri 
table,  which  have  ever  been  the  terror  of  man, 
together  with  their  respective  death-dealing  at 
tributes.  The  pieuvre  has  none  of  all  these  - 
none  of  these  vulgar  agencies  of  dread.  What, 
then,  is  the  pieuvre?  It  is  a  sucker.  "It  is,  in 
appearance,  a  mere  rag  floating  under  water. 
When  at  rest  it  is  dust-colored.  But  enraged  it 
grows  violet.  Then  it  throws  itself  upon  you. 
Fearful  sensation!  it  is  soft."  Its  tentacular 
thongs  garrote  you;  its  contact  paralyzes.  "It 
looks  scorbutic,  gangrenescent.  It  is  disease  ar 
ranged  into  a  monstrosity."  But  we  will  leave 
M.  Hugo  the  fine  illustrations  of  his  own  tongue. 
"  Une  viscosite  qui  a  une  volonte,  quoi  de  plus  ef- 
f ray  able?  De  la  glue  petrie  de  haine."  This  irre 
sistible  creature  devours  you  in  such  a  way  as  to 
elicit  from  M.  Hugo  the  following  remark:  "Be- 

196 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

yond  the  terrible,  being  eaten  alive,  is  the  ineffable, 
being  drunk  alive."  This  is  followed  by  some 
characteristic  ratiocinations  on  physiology.  Gil- 
liatt  comes  near  being  absorbed  into  the  pieuvre; 
but,  for  the  matter  of  that,  we  all  go  into  each 
other.  " Pourriture,  cest  nourriture.  Fearful 
cleaning  of  the  globe!  Carnivorous  man  is  an 
entomber;  and  life  is  made  of  death.  .  .  .  We  are 
sepulchres."  In  spite  of  this  general  law,  how 
ever,  Gilliatt  defers  his  burial  by  decapitating  the 
pieuvre.  Shortly  afterwards,  he  discovers,  in  a 
very  nearly  submarine  cavern,  a  human  skeleton, 
girded  about  with  a  money  belt,  inside  of  which 
is  written  Sieur  Clubin.  It  was  not  in  vain,  there 
fore,  that  this  unfaithful  servant  had  been  de 
tained  beneath  the  waters.  Gilliatt  appropriates, 
provisionally,  the  belt,  and  ultimately  arrives  at 
a  successful  solution  of  his  problem  in  mechanics. 
His  interruptions,  his  perils,  his  sufferings,  his 
visions,  must  be  read  in  detail.  There  is  a  long 
description  of  a  storm  which  grazes  the  sublime 
and  jostles  the  ridiculous.  Detached  from  its 
context,  any  example  of  the  former  would,  we 
fear,  fail  to  justify  itself  to  the  reader;  and,  in 
deed,  the  nearest  approach  to  greatness  in  this 
whole  episode  is  not  to  be  found  in  particular 
passages,  but  in  the  very  magnificent  intention  of 
the  whole.  As  for  the  ridiculous,  we  cannot  but 
think  that  it  is  amply  presented  by  everything 
that  follows  Gilliatt's  successful  return  with  the 
rescued  and  renovated  vessel.  While  Deruchette's 

197 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

uncle  is  digesting  his  surprise,  gratitude,  and  joy, 
Deruchette  herself  is  engaged  in  a  very  sentimental 
tete-a-tete  in  the  garden  with  a  young  Anglican 
divine.  An  involuntary  witness  of  their  emotions, 
Gilliatt  immediately  withdraws  his  claims.  More 
than  this,  he  personally  superintends  the  marriage 
of  the  young  couple,  and  sees  them  on  board  the 
vessel  which,  after  the  wedding,  is  to  convey  them 
to  England.  And  after  this,  says  the  superficial 
reader,  he  of  course  goes  home  and  smokes  a  pipe. 
But  little  has  such  a  reader  fathomed  the  depths 
of  this  heroic  nature.  He  betakes  himself  to  a 
well-known  spot  on  the  side  of  a  cliff,  where  a  de 
pression  in  the  rock  forms,  at  low  tide,  a  sort  of 
natural  chair.  Here  he  seats  himself  in  time  to 
witness  the  passage  of  the  vessel  bearing  away 
Deruchette  and  her  husband.  It  almost  "grazed 
the  cliff",  says  M.  Hugo.  There  on  the  deck,  in  a 
bar  of  sunshine,  sit  the  happy  young  couple,  lost 
in  mutual  endearments.  The  vessel  moves  away 
toward  the  horizon,  while  the  tide  rises  to  Gil- 
liatt's  feet.  As  the  vessel  travels  before  his  un 
winking  eye,  so  gradually  the  water  surges  about 
him.  It  reaches  his  knees,  his  waist,  his  shoulders, 
his  chin:  but  he  moves  not.  The  little  birds  call 
to  him  warningly,  but  he  heeds  them  not.  He 
sits  open-eyed,  gazing  at  the  sloop.  His  eye, 
says  the  author,  "resembled  nothing  that  can 
be  seen  on  this  earth.  That  calm  and  tragic 
pupil  contained  the  inexpressible/'  As  the  dis 
tant  sloop  disappears  from  the  horizon,  the  eye 

198 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

is  hidden,  the  head  is  covered,  the  ocean  reigns 
alone. 

Such  is  M.  Victor  Hugo's  story.  The  reader 
will  see  that,  dramatically,  it  is  emphatically  not 
what,  from  the  title,  it  was  likely  pre-eminently 
to  be  —  a  study  from  nature.  Nature  is  nowhere: 
M.  Victor  Hugo  is  everywhere;  and  his  work  will 
add  very  little  to  our  knowledge  of  anything  but 
himself.  It  is,  in  our  opinion,  the  work  of  a  de 
cline.  We  have  not  hesitated  to  speak  of  it  with 
levity,  because  we  believe  it  to  have  been  written 
exclusively  from  the  head.  This  fact  we  deeply 
regret,  for  we  have  an  enormous  respect  for  M. 
Victor  Hugo's  heart. 


199 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 


XXIII 

Felix  Holt,  the  T^adical 

TDETTER,  perhaps,  than  any  of  George  Eliot's 
•"  novels  does  "Felix  Holt"  illustrate  her  closely 
wedded  talent  and  foibles.  Her  plots  have  always 
been  artificial  —  clumsily  artificial  —  the  conduct 
of  her  story  slow,  and  her  style  diffuse.  Her  con 
clusions  have  been  signally  weak,  as  the  reader 
will  admit  who  recalls  Hetty's  reprieve  in  "Adam 
Bede",  the  inundation  of  the  Floss,  and,  worse 
than  either,  the  comfortable  reconciliation  of 
Romola  and  Tessa.  The  plot  of  "Felix  Holt"  is 
essentially  made  up,  and  its  development  is  forced. 
The  style  is  the  same  lingering,  slow-moving,  ex 
panding  instrument  which  we  already  know.  The 
termination  is  hasty,  inconsiderate,  and  unsatis 
factory  —  is,  in  fact,  almost  an  anti-climax.  It  is 
a  good  instance  of  a  certain  sagacious  tendency  to 
compromise  which  pervades  the  author's  spirit, 
and  to  which  her  novels  owe  that  disproportion 
between  the  meagre  effect  of  the  whole  and  the 
vigorous  character  of  the  different  parts,  which 
stamp  them  as  the  works  of  a  secondary  thinker 
and  an  incomplete  artist.  But  if  such  are  the 

"  Felix  Holt,  the  Radical."    By  George  Eliot.    New  York  : 
1866. 

2OO 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

faults  of  "Felix  Holt"  or  some  of  them,  we  hasten 
to  add  that  its  merits  are  immense,  and  that  the 
critic  finds  it  no  easy  task  to  disengage  himself 
from  the  spell  of  so  much  power,  so  much  bril 
liancy,  and  so  much  discretion.  In  what  other 
writer  than  George  Eliot  could  we  forgive  so  rusty 
a  plot,  and  such  langueurs  of  exposition,  such  a 
disparity  of  outline  and  detail?  or,  we  may  even 
say,  of  outline  and  outline  —  of  general  outline 
and  of  particular?  so  much  drawing  and  so  little 
composition?  In  compensation  for  these  defects 
we  have  the  broad  array  of  those  rich  accom 
plishments  to  which  we  owe  "Adam  Bede"  and 
"Romola."  First  in  order  comes  the  firm  and 
elaborate  delineation  of  individual  character,  of 
which  Tito  in  "Romola"  is  a  better  example  than 
the  present  work  affords  us.  Then  comes  that  ex 
tensive  human  sympathy,  that  easy  understand 
ing  of  character  at  large,  that  familiarity  with  man, 
from  which  a  novelist  draws  his  real  inspiration, 
from  which  he  borrows  all  his  ideal  lines  and  hues, 
to  which  he  appeals  for  a  blessing  on  his  fictitious 
process,  and  to  which  he  owes  it  that,  firm  locked 
in  the  tissue  of  the  most  rigid  prose,  he  is  still 
more  or  less  of  a  poet.  George  Eliot's  humanity 
colors  all  her  other  gifts  —  her  humor,  her  morality, 
and  her  exquisite  rhetoric.  Of  all  her  qualities  her 
humor  is  apparently  most  generally  relished.  Its 
popularity  may,  perhaps,  be  partially  accounted 
for  by  a  natural  reaction  against  the  dogma,  so 
long  maintained,  that  a  woman  has  no  humor. 

20 1 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

Still,  there  is  no  doubt  that  what  passes  for  such 
among  the  admirers  of  Mrs.  Poyser  and  Mrs. 
Glegg  really  rests  upon  a  much  broader  perception 
of  human  incongruities  than  belongs  to  many  a 
masculine  humorist.  As  for  our  author's  morality, 
each  of  our  readers  has  felt  its  influence  for  him 
self.  We  hardly  know  how  to  qualify  it.  It  is  not 
bold,  nor  passionate,  nor  aggressive,  nor  uncom 
promising  —  it  is  constant,  genial,  and  discreet. 
It  is  apparently  the  fruit  of  a  great  deal  of  culture, 
experience,  and  resignation.  It  carries  with  it 
that  charm  and  that  authority  which  will  always 
attend  the  assertions  of  a  mind  enriched  by  re 
searches,  when  it  declares  that  wisdom  and  affec 
tion  are  better  than  science.  We  speak  of  the 
author's  intellectual  culture  of  course  only  as  we 
see  it  reflected  in  her  style  —  a  style  the  secret 
of  whose  force  is  in  the  union  of  the  tenderest  and 
most  abundant  sympathies  with  a  body  of  knowl 
edge  so  ample  and  so  active  as  to  be  absolutely 
free  from  pedantry. 

As  a  story  "Felix  Holt"  is  singularly  inartistic. 
The  promise  of  the  title  is  only  half  kept.  The 
history  of  the  hero's  opinions  is  made  subordinate 
to  so  many  other  considerations,  to  so  many 
sketches  of  secondary  figures,  to  so  many  discur 
sive  amplifications  of  incidental  points,  to  so 
much  that  is  clear  and  brilliant  and  entertaining, 
but  that,  compared  with  this  central  object,  is  not 
serious,  that  when  the  reader  finds  the  book  draw 
ing  to  a  close  without  having,  as  it  were,  brought 

202 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

Felix  Holt's  passions  to  a  head,  he  feels  tempted 
to  pronounce  it  a  failure  and  a  mistake.  As  a 
novel  with  a  hero  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  is 
a  failure.  Felix  is  a  fragment.  We  find  him  a 
Radical  and  we  leave  him  what?  —  only  "utterly 
married";  which  is  all  very  well  in  its  place,  but 
which  by  itself  makes  no  conclusion.  He  tells 
his  mistress  at  the  outset  that  he  was  "converted 
by  six  weeks'  debauchery."  These  very  dramatic 
antecedents  demanded  somehow  a  group  of  con 
sequents  equally  dramatic.  But  that  quality  of 
discretion  which  we  have  mentioned  as  belonging 
to  the  author,  that  tendency  to  avoid  extreme  de 
ductions  which  has  in  some  way  muffled  the  crisis 
in  each  of  her  novels,  and  which,  reflected  in  her 
style,  always  mitigates  the  generosity  of  her 
eloquence  —  these  things  appear  to  have  shackled 
the  freedom  of  her  hand  in  drawing  a  figure  which 
she  wished  and  yet  feared  to  make  consistently 
heroic.  It  is  not  that  Felix  acts  at  variance  with 
his  high  principles,  but  that,  considering  their 
importance,  he  and  his  principles  play  so  brief  a 
part  and  are  so  often  absent  from  the  scene.  He 
is  distinguished  for  his  excellent  good  sense.  He 
is  uncompromising  yet  moderate,  eager  yet  pa 
tient,  earnest  yet  unimpassioned.  He  is  indeed 
a  thorough  young  Englishman,  and,  in  spite  of 
his  sincerity,  his  integrity,  his  intelligence,  and 
his  broad  shoulders,  there  is  nothing  in  his  figure  to 
thrill  the  reader.  There  is  another  great  novelist 
who  has  often  dealt  with  men  and  women  moved 

203 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

by  exceptional  opinions.  Whatever  these  opin 
ions  may  be,  the  reader  shares  them  for  the  time 
with  the  writer;  he  is  thrilled  by  the  contact  of 
her  passionate  earnestness,  and  he  is  borne  rap 
idly  along  upon  the  floods  of  feeling  which  rush 
through  her  pages.  The  Radicalism  of  "Felix 
Holt"  is  strangely  remote  from  the  reader;  we 
do  not  say  as  Radicalism,  which  we  may  have 
overtopped  or  undermined,  but  simply  as  a  feel 
ing  entertained.  In  fact,  after  the  singular 
eclipse  or  extinction  which  it  appears  to  undergo 
on  the  occasion  of  his  marriage,  the  reader  feels 
tempted  to  rejoice  that  he,  personally,  has  not 
worked  himself  nearer  to  it.  There  is,  to  our 
perception,  but  little  genuine  passion  in  George 
Eliot's  men  and  women.  With  the  exception  of 
Maggie  Tulliver  in  "The  Mill  on  the  Floss",  her 
heroines  are  alt  marked  by  a  singular  spiritual 
tenuity.  In  two  of  her  novels  she  has  introduced 
seductions;  but  in  both  these  cases  the  heroines  - 
Hetty,  in  "Adam  Bede",  and  Tessa,  in  "Romola" 
-  are  of  so  light  a  character  as  to  reduce  to  a 
minimum  the  dramatic  interest  of  the  episode. 
We  nevertheless  think  Hetty  the  best  drawn  of 
her  young  women.  Esther  Lyon,  the  heroine  of 
the  present  tale,  has  great  merits  of  intention,  but 
the  action  subsides  without  having  given  her  a 
"chance." 

It  is  as  a  broad  picture  of  Midland  country  life 
in  England,  thirty  years  ago,  that  "Felix  Holt" 
is,  to  our  taste,  most  interesting.  On  this  subject 

204 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

the  author  writes  from  a  full  mind,  with  a  wealth 
of  fancy,  of  suggestion,  of  illustration,  at  the  com 
mand  of  no  other  English  writer,  bearing  you  along 
on  the  broad  and  placid  rises  of  her  speech,  with  a 
kind  of  retarding  persuasiveness  which  allows  her 
conjured  images  to  sink  slowly  into  your  very 
brain.  She  has  written  no  pages  of  this  kind  of 
discursive,  comprehensive,  sympathetic  descrip 
tion  more  powerful  or  more  exquisite  than  the  in 
troductory  chapter  of  the  present  work.  Against 
the  solid  and  deep-colored  passages  and  touches, 
she  has  placed  a  vast  number  of  rustic  figures. 
We  have  no  space  to  discriminate  them;  we  can 
only  say  that  in  their  aggregate  they  leave  a  vivid 
sense  of  that  multiplicity  of  eccentricities,  and 
humors,  and  quaintnesses,  and  simple  bizarreries, 
which  appears  to  belong  of  right  to  old  English 
villages.  There  are  particular  scenes  here  —  scenes 
among  common  people  —  miners,  tinkers,  butchers, 
saddlers,  and  undertakers  —  as  good  as  anything 
that  the  author  has  written.  Nothing  can  be 
better  than  the  scene  in  which  Felix  interrupts 
Johnson's  canvass  in  the  tavern,  or  that  of  the 
speech-making  at  Duffield.  In  general,  we  prefer 
George  Eliot's  low-life  to  her  high-life.  She  seems 
carefully  to  have  studied  the  one  from  without, 
and  the  other-she  seems  to  have  glanced  at  from 
the  midst  of  it.  Mrs.  Transome  seems  to  us 
an  unnatural,  or  rather  we  should  say,  a  super 
fluous  figure.  Her  sorrows  and  trials  occupy  a 
space  disproportionate  to  any  part  that  she  plays. 

205 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

She  is  intensely  drawn,  and  yet  dramatically  she 
stands  idle.  She  is,  nevertheless,  made  the  oc 
casion,  like  all  of  her  fellow-actors,  however 
shadowy  they  may  be,  of  a  number  of  deep  and 
brilliant  touches.  The  character  of  her  son,  the 
well-born,  cold-blooded,  and  moneyed  Liberal, 
who  divides  the  heroship  with  Felix,  is  delicately 
and  firmly  conceived;  but  like  the  great  Tito  even, 
like  Mr.  Lyon,  the  Dissenting  preacher  in  the 
present  work,  like  Esther  Lyon  herself,  he  is  too 
long-drawn,  too  placid;  he  lacks  dramatic  com 
pactness  and  rapidity.  Tito  is  presented  to  us 
with  some  degree  of  completeness,  only  because 
Romola  is  very  long,  and  because,  for  his  sake, 
the  reader  is  very  patient. 

A  great  deal  of  high  praise  has  been  given  to 
"Felix  Holt",  and  a  great  deal  more  will  be  given 
still;  a  great  many  strong  words  will  be  used  about 
the  author.  But  we  think  it  of  considerable  im 
portance  that  these  should  at  least  go  no  further 
than  they  have  already  gone.  It  is  no  new  phe 
nomenon  for  an  English  novelist  to  exhibit  mental 
resources  which  may  avail  him  in  other  walks 
of  literature;  to  have  powers  of  thought  at  all 
commensurate  with  his  powers  of  imagination, 
that  when  a  writer  unites  these  conditions  he  is 
likely  to  receive  excessive  homage*  There  is  in 
George  Eliot's  writings  a  tone  of  sagacity,  of 
easy  penetration,  which  leads  us  to  believe  that 
she  would  be  the  last  to  form  a  false  estimate  of 
her  works,  together  with  a  serious  respect  for 

206 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

truth  which  convinces  us  that  she  would  lament 
the  publication  of  such  an  estimate.  In  our 
opinion,  then,  neither  "Felix  Holt",  nor  "Adam 
Bede",  nor  "Romola",  is  a  master-piece.  They 
have  none  of  the  inspiration,  the  heat,  nor  the 
essential  simplicity  of  such  a  work.  They  belong 
to  a  kind  of  writing  in  which  the  English  tongue 
has  .the  good  fortune  to  abound  —  that  clever, 
voluble,  bright-colored  novel  of  manners  which 
began  with  the  present  century  under  the  auspices 
of  Miss  Edgeworth  and  Miss  Austen.  George 
Eliot  is  stronger  in  degree  than  either  of  these 
writers,  but  she  is  not  different  in  kind.  She 
brings  to  her  task  a  richer  mind,  but  she  uses  it 
in  very  much  the  same  way.  With  a  certain 
masculine  comprehensiveness  which  they  lack, 
she  is  eventually  a  feminine  —  a  delightfully  femi 
nine  —  writer.  She  has  the  microscopic  obser 
vation,  not  a  myriad  of  whose  keen  notations 
are  worth  a  single  one  of  those  great  sympathetic 
guesses  with  which  a  real  master  attacks  the  truth, 
and  which,  by  their  occasional  occurrence  in  the 
stories  of  Mr.  Charles  Reade  (the  much  abused 
"Griffith  Gaunt"  included),  make  him,  to  our 
mind,  the  most  readable  of  living  English  novel 
ists,  and  prove  him  a  distant  kinsman  of  Shake 
speare.  George  Eliot  has  the  exquisitely  good 
taste  on  a  small  scale,  the  absence  of  taste  on 
a  large  (the  vulgar  plot  of  "Felix  Holt"  exem 
plifies  this  deficiency),  the  unbroken  current  of 
feeling  and,  we  may  add,  of  expression,  which 

207 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

distinguishes  the  feminine  mind.  That  she 
should  be  offered  a  higher  place  than  she  has 
earned,  is  easily  explained  by  the  charm  which 
such  gifts  as  hers  in  such  abundance  are  sure  to 
exercise. 


208 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 


XXIV 

The  fjtters  of  Eugenie  de  Querin 


that  the  friends  and  correspondents  of 
Mademoiselle  de  Guerin  have  consented  to 
the  publication  of  her  letters,  there  remains  no 
obstacle  to  a  thorough  acquaintance  not  only  with 
the  facts  of  her  external  life,  but  with  her  thoughts 
and  feelings  —  the  life  of  her  soul.  It  can  have 
been  the  fortune  of  few  persons  to  become  so 
widely  and  intimately  known  as  the  author  of 
these  letters,  and  to  have  evoked  sentiments  of 
such  unalloyed  admiration  and  tenderness.  How 
small  is  the  proportion  either  of  men  or  of  women 
who  could  afford  to  have  the  last  veil  of  privacy 
removed  from  their  daily  lives;  not  for  an  excep 
tional  moment,  a  season  of  violent  inspiration  or 
of  spasmodic  effort,  but  constantly,  uninterrupt 
edly,  for  a  period  of  seventeen  years.  Mile,  de 
Guerin's  letters  confirm  in  every  particular  the 
consummately  pleasing  impression  left  by  her 
journal.  A  delicate  mind,  an  affectionate  heart, 
a  pious  soul  —  the  gift  of  feeling  and  of  expression 
in  equal  measure  —  and  this  not  from  the  poverty 
of  the  former  faculty,  but  from  the  absolute  rich 
ness  of  the  latter.  The  aggregation  of  these  facts 

"Lettres  d'Eugenie  de  Guerin."     New  York  :  189^. 
209 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

again  resolves  itself  under  the  reader's  eyes  into  a 
figure  of  a  sweetness  so  perfect,  so  uniform,  and 
so  simple  that  it  seems  to  belong  rather  to  the 
biography  of  a  mediaeval  saint  than  to  the  com 
plex  mechanism  of  our  actual  life.  And,  indeed, 
what  was  Mile,  de  Guerin,  after  all,  but  a  mediaeval 
saint?  No  other  definition  so  nearly  covers  the 
union  of  her  abundant  gentleness  and  her  perfect 
simplicity.  There  are  saints  of  various  kinds  — 
passionate  saints  and  saints  of  pure  piety.  Mile, 
de  Guerin  was  one  of  the  latter,  and  we  cannot 
but  think  that  she  needed  but  a  wider  field  of 
action  to  have  effectually  recommended  herself  to 
the  formal  gratitude  of  the  Church.  This  collec 
tion  of  her  letters  seems  to  us  to  have  every  qual 
ity  requisite  to  place  it  beside  those  livres  edifiants 
of  which  she  was  so  fond  —  unction,  intensity, 
and  orthodoxy. 

We  have  called  Mile,  de  Guerin  a  saint  perhaps 
as  much  from  a  sense  of  satisfaction  in  being  able 
to  apply  a  temporary  definition  to  out  predicate 
as  from  the  desire  to  qualify  our  subject.  What 
is  a  saint?  the  reader  may  ask.  A  saint,  we 
hasten  to  reply,  is  —  Mile,  de  Guerin;  read  her 
letters  and  you  will  discover.  If  you  are  dis 
appointed,  the  reason  will  lie  not  in  this  admir 
able  woman,  but  in  the  saintly  idea.  Such  as  this 
idea  is,  she  answers  it  —  and  we  have  called  her, 
moreover,  a  mediaeval  saint.  It  is  true  that  the 
organization  of  society  during  these  latter  years 
has  not  been  favorable  to  a  direct  and  extensive 

210 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

action  on  the  part  of  personal  sanctity,  and  that, 
as  we  associate  the  idea  of  a  successful  exercise  of 
this  distinction  with  social  conditions  which  have 
long  ceased  to  exist,  it  seems  almost  illogical  to 
imply  that  saintship  is  possible  among  our  con 
temporaries.  Yet  it  is  equally  certain  that  men 
and  women  of  extraordinary  purity  of  charac 
ter  constantly  attain  to  a  familiarity  with  di 
vine  things  as  deep  and  undisturbed  as  Mile,  de 
Guerin's.  Her  peculiar  distinction  —  that  fact 
through  which  she  evokes  the  image  of  an  earlier 
stage  of  the  world's  history  —  is  the  singular 
simplicity  of  her  genius  and  of  her  circumstances. 
Nowhere  are  exquisite  moral  rectitude  and  the 
spirit  of  devotion  more  frequent  than  in  New 
England;  but  in  New  England,  to  a  certain  ex 
tent,  virtue  and  piety  seem  to  be  nourished  by 
vice  and  skepticism.  A  very  good  man  or  a  very 
good  woman  in  New  England  is  an  extremely 
complex  being.  They  are  as  innocent  as  you 
please,  but  they  are  anything  but  ignorant.  They 
travel;  they  hold  political  opinions;  they  are  ac 
complished  Abolitionists;  they  read  magazines 
and  newspapers,  and  write  for  them;  they  read 
novels  and  police  reports;  they  subscribe  to 
lyceum  lectures  and  to  great  libraries;  in  a  word, 
they  are  enlightened.  The  result  of  this  freedom 
of  enquiry  is  that  they  become  profoundly  self- 
conscious.  They  obtain  a  notion  of  the  relation 
of  their  virtues  to  a  thousand  objects  of  which 
Mile,  de  Guerin  had  no  conception,  and,  owing  to 

211 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

their  relations  with  these  objects,  they  present  a 
myriad  of  reflected  lights  and  shadows.  For  Mile, 
de  Guerin  there  existed  but  two  objects  —  the 
church  and  the  world,  of  neither  of  which  did  it 
ever  occur  to  her  to  attempt  an  analysis.  One 
was  all  good,  the  other  all  evil  —  although  here, 
perhaps,  her  rich  natural  charity  arrested  in  some 
degree  her  aversion.  Such  being  her  attitude 
toward  external  things,  Mile,  de  Guerin  was  cer 
tainly  not  enlightened.  But  she  was  better  than 
this  —  she  was  light  itself.  Her  life  —  or  perhaps 
we  should  rather  say  her  faith  —  is  like  a  small, 
still  taper  before  a  shrine,  flickering  in  no  fitful 
air-current,  and  steadily  burning  to  its  socket. 

To  busy  New  Englanders  the  manners  and 
household  habits  exhibited  in  these  letters  are 
stamped  with  all  the  quaintness  of  remote  an 
tiquity.  But  for  a  couple  of  short  sojourns  in 
Paris  and  in  the  Nivernais,  a  journey  to  Toulouse, 
and  a  visit  to  the  Pyrenees  shortly  before  her 
death,  Mile,  de  Guerin's  life  was  passed  in  an 
isolated  chateau  in  the  heart  of  an  ancient  prov 
ince,  without  visitors,  without  books,  without 
diversions;  with  no  society  but  that  of  her  only 
sister,  a  brother,  the  senior  of  Maurice,  and  her 
father,  whom  the  reader's  fancy,  kindled  by  an 
occasional  allusion,  depicts  as  one  of  the  scattered 
outstanding  gentlemen  of  the  old  regime  —  proud, 
incorruptible,  austere,  devout,  and  affectionate, 
and,  with  his  small  resources,  a  keen  wine-grower. 
It  is  no  wonder  that,  in  the  social  vacuity  of  her 

212 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

life,  Mile,  de  Guerin  turned  so  earnestly  to  letter- 
writing.  Her  only  other  occupations  were  to 
think  about  her  brother  Maurice,  to  spin  by  the 
kitchen  fireside,  to  read  the  life  of  a  saint,  or  at 
best  a  stray  volume  of  Scott  or  Lamartine,  or 
Bernardin  de  Saint-Pierre;  to  observe  zealously 
the  fasts  and  festivals  and  sacraments  of  the 
church,  and  to  visit  sick  peasants.  Her  greatest 
social  pleasure  seems  to  have  been  an  occasional 
talk  with  an  ecclesiastic;  for  to  her  perception  all 
priests  were  wise  and  benignant,  and  never  com 
monplace.  "To-morrow",  she  writes,  "I  shall 
talk  sermon.  We  are  to  hear  the  Abbe  Roques. 
He  is  always  my  favorite  preacher.  //  is  nt  that 
the  others  are  not  excellent"  There  is  something 
very  pathetic  in  the  intellectual  penury  with 
which  Mile,  de  Guerin  had  to  struggle,  although 
there  is  no  doubt  that  the  unsuspecting  simplicity 
of  vision  which  charms  us  in  her  writing  is  largely 
owing  to  the  narrow  extent  of  her  reading.  The 
household  stock  of  books  was  small;  it  was  diffi 
cult,  both  on  account  of  the  exiguity  of  the  means 
of  the  family  and  its  remoteness  from  a  large 
town,  to  procure  new  ones;  and  in  the  case  of 
Mile,  de  Guerin  herself,  the  number  of  available 
works  was  further  limited  by  her  constant  scruples 
as  to  their  morality.  It  must  be  owned  that  she 
knew  few  works  of  the  first  excellence.  She  read 
St.  Augustine  and  Fenelon  and  Pascal,  but  for 
the  most  part  she  got  her  thoughts  very  far  from 
the  source.  Some  one  gives  her  Montaigne,  but, 

213 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

although  she  is  no  longer  a  young  girl,  she  dis 
creetly  declines  to  open  him.  "I  am  reading  for 
a  second  time,"  she  writes,  "Bernardin  de  Saint- 
Pierre,  an  amiable  and  simple  author,  whom  it  is 
good  to  read  in  the  country.  After  this  I  should 
like  'Notre  Dame  de  Paris';  but  I  am  afraid. 
These  novels  make  such  havoc  that  I  dread  their 
passage;  it  terrifies  me  simply  to  see  their  effect 
on  certain  hearts.  Mine,  now  so  calm,  would  like 
to  remain  as  it  is."  So,  instead  of  the  great  men, 
she  contents  herself  with  the  small.  "You  see," 
she  elsewhere  says,  "we  are  keeping  the  Month  of 
Mary.  I  have  bought  for  this  purpose  at  Albi  a 
little  book,  'The  New  Month  of  Mary',  by  the 
Abbe  Le  Gaillan;  a  little  book  of  which  I  am  very 
fond  —  soft  and  sweet,  like  May  itself,  and  full  of 
flowers  of  devotion.  Whoever  should  take  it  well 
to  heart  would  be  agreeable  to  God  and  en  admira 
tion  aux  anges.  .  .  .  Read  it;  it  is  something 
celestial." 

It  is  difficult  to  give  an  idea  of  the  intimacy,  the 
immediacy,  of  Mile,  de  Guerin's  relations  with 
the  practice  of  piety.  Not  an  incident  but  is  a 
motive,  a  pretext,  an  occasion,  for  religious  action 
or  reflection  of  some  kind.  She  looks  at  the  world 
from  over  the  top  of  her  prie-dieu,  with  her  finger 
in  her  prayer-book.  "Mile.  d'H.",  she  writes, 
"comes  to  edify  me  every  second  day;  she  reaches 
church  early,  confesses  herself,  and  takes  the 
communion  with  an  air  d*ange  that  ravishes  and 
desolates  me.  How  I  envy  her  her  soul!  .  .  .  Her 

214 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

brothers,  too,  are  little  saints.  The  eldest,  etc. 
.  .  .  Isn't  it  very  edifying?"  And  again:  "I  am 
in  every  way  surrounded  with  edification,  fed 
upon  sermons  and  discourses.  Such  a  good  Lent 
as  I  have  passed!"  Describing  to  a  dear  friend, 
a  young  lady  of  her  own  age,  a  peculiar  ceremony 
which  she  had  witnessed  on  a  young  girl's  taking 
conventual  vows:  ''They  say",  she  concludes, 
"  that  everything  the  novice  asks  of  God  at  this 
moment  is  granted  her.  One  asked  to  die;  she 
died.  Do  you  know  what  I  would  ask  ?  That  you 
should  be  a  saint."  The  reader  will,  of  course,  be 
prepared  to  find  Mile,  de  Guerin  a  very  consistent 
Catholic  —  a  perfect,  an  absolute  one.  This  fact 
explains  her,  and  we  may  even  say  excuses  her. 
So  complete  a  spiritual  submission,  so  complete 
an  intellectual  self-stultification,  would  be  revolt 
ing  if  they  were  a  matter  of  choice.  It  is  because 
they  are  a  matter  of  authority  and  necessity, 
things  born  to  and  implicitly  accepted,  that  the 
reader  is  able  to  put  away  his  sense  of  their  funda 
mental  repulsiveness  sufficiently  to  allow  him  to 
appreciate  their  incidental  charms.  It  is  the  utter 
consistency  of  Mile,  de  Guerin's  faith,  the  unin- 
terruptedness  of  her  spiritual  subjection,  that 
make  them  beautiful.  A  question,  a  doubt,  an 
act  of  will,  the  least  shadow  of  a  claim  to  choice 
-  these  things  would  instantly  break  the  charm, 
deprive  the  letters  of  their  invaluable  distinction, 
and  transform  them  from  a  delightful  book  into  a 
merely  readable  one.  That  distinction  lies  in  the 

215 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

fact  that  they  form  a  work  of  pure,  unmitigated 
feeling.  The  penalty  paid  by  Mile,  de  Guerin 
and  those  persons  who  are  educated  in  the  same 
principles,  for  their  spiritual  and  mental  security, 
is  that  they  are  incapable  of  entertaining  or  pro 
ducing  ideas.  There  is  not,  to  our  belief,  a  single 
idea,  a  single  thought,  in  the  whole  of  these  pages. 
On  the  other  hand,  one  grand,  supreme  idea  being 
tacitly  understood  and  accepted  throughout  - 
the  idea,  namely,  of  the  Church  —  and  a  particu 
lar  direction  being  thus  given  to  emotion,  there 
is  an  incalculable  host  of  feelings.  Judge  how 
matters  are  simplified.  Genius  and  pure  feeling! 
No  wonder  Mile,  de  Guerin  writes  well!  There 
are,  doubtless,  persons  who  would  be  ill-natured 
enough  to  call  her  a  bigot;  but  never  would  the 
term  have  been  so  ill  applied.  Is  a  pure  skeptic  a 
bigot?  Mile,  de  Guerin  was  the  converse  of  this, 
a  pure  believer.  A  pure  skeptic  doubts  all  he 
knows;  Mile,  de  Guerin  believes  all  she  knows. 
She  knows  only  the  Catholic  Church.  A  bigot 
refuses;  she  did  nothing  all  her  life  but  accept. 

The  two  great  events  of  Mile,  de  Guerin's  life 
were  her  visit  to  Paris  on  the  occasion  of  the  mar 
riage  of  her  brother  Maurice,  and  his  death,  in 
Languedoc,  eight  months  afterwards.  Paris  she 
took  very  quietly,  as  she  took  everything.  What 
pleased  her  most  was  the  abundance  and  splendor 
of  the  churches,  in  which  she  spent  a  large  portion 
of  her  time.  She  had  changed  her  sky,  but  she 
did  not  change  her  mind.  The  profoundest  im- 

216 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

pression,  however,  that  she  was  destined  to  re 
ceive  was  that  caused  by  her  brother's  death.  He 
died  on  the  best  of  terms  with  the  Church,  from 
which  he  had  suffered  a  temporary  alienation. 
Her  letters  on  the  occasion  of  this  event  have 
an  accent  of  intense  emotion  which  nothing  else 
could  arouse.  We  cannot  do  better  than  trans 
late  a  portion  of  one,  which  seems  to  us  to  possess 
a  most  painful  beauty: 

"For  a  week  now  since  he  has  left  us  —  since 
he  is  in  heaven  and  I  am  on  earth  —  I  have  n't 
been  able  to  speak  to  you  of  him,  to  be  with  you, 
to  unite  with  you,  my  tender  friend,  also  so  dearly 
loved.  Shall  we  never  be  disabused  of  our  affec 
tions?  Neither  sorrows,  nor  rupture,  nor  death  - 
nothing  changes  us.  We  love,  still  love  —  love 
into  the  very  tomb,  love  ashes,  cling  to  the  body 
which  has  borne  a  soul;  but  the  soul,  we  know  that 
is  in  heaven.  Oh,  yes!  there  above,  where  I  see 
thee,  my  dear  Maurice;  where  thou  art  awaiting 
me  and  saying,  'Eugenie,  come  hither  to  God, 
where  one  is  happy.'  My  dear  friend,  all  happi 
ness  on  earth  is  at  an  end;  I  told  you  so;  I  have 
buried  the  life  of  my  heart;  I  have  lost  the  charm 
of  my  existence.  I  did  not  know  all  that  I  found 
in  my  brother,  nor  what  happiness  I  had  placed 
in  him.  Prospects,  hopes,  my  old  life  beside  his, 
and  then  a  soul  that  understood  me.  He  and 
I  were  two  eyes  in  the  same  head.  Now  we  're 
apart.  God  has  come  between  us.  His  will  be 
done!  God  stood  on  Calvary  for  the  love  of  us; 

217 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

let  us  stand  at  the  foot  of  the  cross  for  the  love  of 
him.  This  one  seems  heavy  and  covered  with 
thorns,  but  so  was  that  of  Jesus.  Let  him  help 
me  to  carry  mine.  We  shall  at  last  get  to  the  top, 
and  from  Calvary  to  heaven  the  road  is  n't  long. 
Life  is  short,  and  indeed  what  should  we  do  on 
earth  with  eternity?  My  God!  so  long  as  we  are 
holy,  that  we  profit  by  the  grace  that  comes  from 
trials,  from  tears,  from  tribulations  and  anguish, 
treasures  of  the  Christian!  Oh,  my  friend!  you 
have  only  to  look  at  these  things,  this  world,  with 
the  eye  of  faith,  and  all  changes.  Happy  Father 
Trubert,  who  sees  this  so  eminently!  How  I 
should  like  to  have  a  little  of  his  soul,  so  full 
of  faith,  so  radiant  with  love!  .  .  .  How  things 
change!  Let  us  change,  too,  my  friend;  let  us  dis 
abuse  ourselves  of  the  world,  of  its  creatures,  of 
everything.  I  only  ask  for  complete  indifference/' 


218 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 


XXV 

"The  fjist  French 

TV/T    ALEXANDRE  DUMAS,  the  younger,  hav- 

-L*  A»  ing  established  a  reputation  as  one  of  the 
most  ingenious  of  playwrights,  and  the  most  un 
flinching  in  his  adherence  to  certain  morbid  social 
types,  has  now,  at  one  stroke,  affixed  his  name  to 
the  list  of  the  greater  French  novelists.  He  had, 
indeed,  written  a  number  of  clever  stories;  but 
in  none  of  them  was  there  discernible  a  claim 
to  arrest  the  public  attention.  In  the  "Affaire 
Clemenceau  "  this  claim  is  apparent  from  the  first 
page  to  the  last;  or,  in  other  words,  the  work  bears 
signal  marks  of  being,  before  all  things,  serious. 
It  is  for  this  reason  that  we  feel  justified  in  speak 
ing  of  it. 

The  story  is  cast  into  the  shape  of  a  memorial, 
drawn  up  for  the  use  of  his  advocate  by  a  man 
under  indictment  for  the  murder  of  his  wife.  It 
proposes  to  relate  the  history  of  their  connection 
and  to  trace  out,  step  by  step,  every  link  in  a  long 
chain  of  provocation.  It  aims,  in  fact,  at  putting 
the  lawyer  —  or,  in  other  words,  the  reader  —  as 
nearly  as  possible  in  the  position  of  the  accused. 

"Affaire  Clemenceau:  Memoire  de  I'Accuse."  By  Alex- 
andre  Dumas.  Paris  :  1866. 

210 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

It  is  not  a  piece  of  special  pleading;  it  is  a  patient, 
intelligent  statement  of  facts.  It  is  not,  indeed,  a 
mere  dry  catalogue  raisonne  of  incidents  governed 
only  by  the  spirit  of  chronology;  for  the  hero  is, 
on  the  face  of  the  matter,  a  man  of  the  deepest 
feeling  and  the  richest  understanding.  Although 
the  narrative  confines  itself  to  facts,  these  are 
dealt  with  in  a  fashion  which  of  late  days  it  has 
been  agreed  to  call  physiological.  Metaphysics 
have  been  for  some  time  turning  to  physiology; 
novels  are  following  their  example.  The  author 
concerns  himself  with  motives  and  with  causes, 
but  his  process  is  the  reverse  of  transcendental. 
He  bores  his  way  so  keenly  and  so  successfully 
into  the  real,  that  one  is  tempted  to  fear  that  he 
will  come  out  on  the  other  side,  as  the  French 
Revolution  is  said  to  have  done  with  regard  to 
liberty.  In  speaking  of  his  book,  it  behooves 
the  critic  honestly  to  take  note  of  the  direction 
towards  which  he  sets  his  face.  It  is  evident  from 
the  outset  that  he  will  deal  with  things  as  they 
are;  that  he  will  speak  without  intellectual  prud 
ery  and  without  bravado;  that,  having  to  tell  a 
story  containing  elements  the  most  painful  and 
the  most  repulsive,  he  will  pursue  the  one  course 
which  may  justify  his  choice:  that  of  exhibiting 
these  elements  in  their  integrity.  To  adopt  such 
a  course,  so  considerately,  so  consciously,  and  yet 
with  so  little  of  that  aggressive  dogmatism  which 
would  be  sure  to  betray  the  mixed  intention  of  an 
inferior  writer;  to  pursue  it  so  steadily,  so  relent- 

220 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

lessly,  and  with  so  sincere  and  manful  an  intelli 
gence  of  the  interests  at  stake;  to  do  this  is,  in  our 
opinion,  to  have  accomplished  a  great  work,  and 
to  have  come  very  near  being  a  great  writer. 

Pierre  Clemenceau  is  the  natural  son  of  an 
industrious  and  successful  lingere.  His  misfor 
tunes  begin  with  his  going  to  school,  where  the 
circumstances  of  his  birth  make  him  an  object 
of  general  obloquy.  The  sufferings  of  childhood 
have  formed  the  stock  of  the  first  volume  of  many 
an  English  novel,  but  we  do  not  remember  to  have 
read  any  account  of  a  school-boy's  tribulations 
so  natural  in  outline  and  so  severely  sober  in  color 
as  the  bald  recital  of  young  Clemenceau's  perse 
cution.  It  has  been  said,  and  doubtless  with 
justice,  in  criticisms  of  this  part  of  the  book,  that 
M.  Dumas  has  fallen  quite  beside  the  mark  in 
localizing  such  a  system  of  moral  reprobation  in  a 
Parisian  school.  Let  us  American  readers,  then, 
take  it  home  to  ourselves;  we  shall  not  have  trans 
lated  the  book  for  nothing.  On  leaving  school, 
Clemenceau  evinces  a  lively  inclination  for  model 
ling  in  clay;  some  of  his  figures  are  shown  to  a 
famous  sculptor,  who  gives  him  hearty  encourage 
ment,  and  kindly  consents  to  receive  him  as  a 
pupil.  From  this  moment  his  worldly  fortunes 
prosper.  His  vocation  is  plain,  he  works  hard,  his 
talent  obtains  due  recognition.  He  is  still  a  very 
young  man,  however,  when  he  meets  at  a  fancy- 
dress  party,  given  by  a  literary  lady  of  the  Bohe 
mian  order,  a  singular  couple,  whose  destinies  are 

221 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

forthwith  interwoven  with  his  own:  a  showy, 
middle-aged  woman,  dressed  as  Marie  de  Medicis, 
and  her  little  daughter,  radiant  with  velvet  and 
childish  loveliness,  as  her  page.  The  child,  worn 
out  with  late  hours,  falls  asleep  in  an  arm-chair; 
while  she  sleeps,  Clemenceau,  with  an  artist's 
impulse,  attempts  to  sketch  her  figure,  and,  while 
he  sketches,  loses  his  heart.  The  child  awakes, 
asks  to  see  the  picture,  and  then  asks  to  possess  it. 
Clemenceau  promises  to  add  a  few  touches  at  his 
leisure,  and  to  bring  it  to  her  the  next  morning. 
This  whole  scene  has  been  aptly  cited  as  an  in 
stance  of  the  author's  resolute  devotion  to  the 
actual  and  the  natural.  Nothing  could  be  less 
ideal,  less  pastoral,  than  the  dawning  of  the  hero's 
passion.  No  privacy,  no  solitude,  no  fresh  air, 
no  glimpse  of  nature;  but,  instead,  a  shabby- 
genteel  masquerade  on  a  rainy  night,  the  odors 
of  the  pot-au-feu,  an  infant  phenomenon,  and  a 
mamma  in  hired  finery.  The  acquaintance  thus 
begun  soon  becomes  an  intimacy.  Madame 
Dobronowska  is  a  Polish  lady  who  has  had  mis 
fortunes,  and  who  is  leading  a  hand-to-mouth 
existence  in  Paris,  in  anticipation  of  the  brilliant 
future  to  which  she  regards  her  daughter's  beauty 
as  the  key.  There  follows  an  elaborate  picture  of 
the  household  of  these  two  ladies,  of  their  mingled 
poverty  and  vanity,  of  the  childish  innocence  and 
incipient  coquetry  of  the  daughter,  of  the  mag 
nificent  visions  and  the  plausible  garrulity  of  the 
mother.  Madame  Dobronowska  is  an  adventuress 

222 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

more  false  and  mercenary  than  the  fancy  can 
readily  conceive,  but  gifted  for  the  ruin  of  her 
victims  with  a  certain  strong  perfume  of  frankness, 
motherliness,  and  bonhomie^  which  is  the  more 
fatal  because  it  is  partly  natural.  There  is  some 
thing  equally  pathetic  and  hideous  in  her  jealous 
adoration  of  her  child's  beauty  and  her  merely 
prudential  vigilance.  "Have  you  seen  her  hands?" 
she  asks  of  Clemenceau,  when  he  comes  with  his 
sketch.  "Yes."  "Look  at  them  by  daylight." 
"She  raised  her  daughter's  hand  and  showed  me 
its  truly  remarkable  transparency  by  flattening  it, 
so  to  speak,  against  the  light;  and  then,  taking  it 
between  her  own,  she  kissed  it  with  a  sort  of 
frenzy,  crying,  '  Tu  es  belle  qa!y  These  words  pro 
duced  upon  the  child  the  effect  of  a  cordial;  the 
color  came  to  her  cheeks,  she  smiled,  she  had  got 
back  her  strength."  Clemenceau  executes  a  bust 
of  the  young  girl,  and  makes  himself  useful  to  the 
mother.  Before  many  weeks,  however,  his  friends 
leave  Paris  to  seek  their  fortunes  in  Russia.  For 
three  years  Clemenceau  sees  nothing  more  of 
them,  although  he  occasionally  receives  a  letter 
from  Iza  (the  daughter)  describing  the  vicissi 
tudes  of  their  career.  Failing  in  her  attempt  to 
secure  for  her  daughter  the  notice  of  the  Crown 
Prince  at  St.  Petersburg,  Madame  Dobronowska 
removes  to  Warsaw,  and  commences  operations 
afresh.  As  time  elapses,  however,  these  operations 
prove  to  be  of  a  nature  detrimental  to  her  daugh 
ter's  honor;  and  Iza,  horrified  by  her  mother's 

223 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

machinations,  which  she  is  now  of  an  age  to  com 
prehend,  applies  for  assistance  to  Clemenceau,  as 
her  only  friend.  The  young  man  replies  by  a  dec 
laration  of  love,  which  Iza  receives  with  rapture, 
and  forthwith  makes  her  escape  to  Paris.  She  is 
now  seventeen  years  old,  and  in  the  perfection  of 
beauty;  Clemenceau's  mother  is  admitted  into 
the  secret,  and  they  are  married.  For  a  long  time 
their  married  life  is  without  a  cloud;  but  at  last 
Iza  becomes  a  mother,  Madame  Dobronowska 
arrives,  a  reconciliation  takes  place,  Clemenceau's 
own  mother  wastes  away  from  an  inexplicable 
malady,  and  a  number  of  his  friends  show  signs 
of  leaving  him.  Finally  comes  upon  him  like  a 
thunder-clap  the  revelation  of  a  long  course  of 
exorbitant  infidelity  on  the  part  of  his  wife.  The 
woman  who  has  been  for  him  the  purest  of  mor 
tals  has  long  been,  for  all  the  world  beside,  a 
prodigy  of  impudicity.  Clemenceau  breaks  with 
her  on  the  spot,  and  takes  the  edge  from  his  frenzy 
by  fighting  a  duel  with  the  last  of  her  many  lovers. 
He  provides  for  the  maintenance  of  his  child,  and 
suffers  himself  to  be  led  to  Rome  by  one  of  his 
friends.  Here,  in  the  study  of  the  great  monu 
ments  of  art,  he  awaits  the  closing  of  the  wound 
which  has  been  inflicted  upon  his  honor  and  upon 
the  deepest  passions  of  his  soul.  His  better  wishes, 
however,  are  not  answered;  day  by  day  the  desire 
for  revenge,  the  fury  of  resentment,  gathers  in 
stead  of  losing  force.  Hearing  at  last  that,  after  a 
short  term  of  seclusion,  his  wife  has  appeared 

224 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

before  the  world  in  a  blaze  of  splendor,  as  the  pre 
sumed  mistress  of  a  foreign  potentate,  he  hastily 
returns  to  Paris  and  presents  himself  at  the  man 
sion  occupied  by  Iza  at  the  cost  of  her  royal  pro 
tector.  She  receives  him  with  the  cynical  good 
nature  of  a  soul  utterly  bereft  of  shame,  and  he 
stabs  her  to  the  heart. 

Such  is  a  rapid  outline  of  M.  Dumas's  story. 
It  traces  the  process  of  the  fatal  domination  ac 
quired  by  a  base  and  ignoble  soul  over  a  lofty  and 
generous  one.  No  criticism  can  give  an  idea  of  the 
mingled  delicacy  and  strength  of  the  method  by 
which  we  are  made  to  witness  the  unfolding  of  the 
heroine's  vicious  instincts.  There  is  in  one  of 
Balzac's  novels  a  certain  Valerie  Marneffe,  who 
may  be  qualified  as  the  poetry  of  Thackeray's 
Becky  Sharpe.  Iza  Dobronowska  is  the  poetry  of 
Valerie  Marneffe.  The  principle  of  her  being  is  an 
absolute  delight  in  her  own  corporeal  loveliness; 
this  principle,  taking  active  force,  leads  her  into 
the  excesses  which  arrest  her  career. 

We  are  content  to  sum  up  the  defects  of  the 
"Affaire  Clemenceau"  in  the  statement  that  its 
ultimate  effect  is  to  depress  the  reader's  mind,  to 
leave  it  with  no  better  compensation  for  the 
patient  endurance  of  so  many  horrors  than  a 
grave  conviction  of  the  writer's  prodigious  talent, 
and  a  certain  vague,  irritating  suspicion  that  his 
own  depression  is  even  deeper  than  ours.  In  the 
way  of  compensation  this  is  not  enough.  To  be 
completely  great,  a  work  of  art  must  lift  up  the 

225 


NOTES    AND    REVIEWS 

reader's  heart;  and  it  is  the  artist's  secret  to 
reconcile  this  condition  with  images  of  the  barest 
and  sternest  reality.  Life  is  dispiriting,  art  is 
inspiring;  and  a  story-teller  who  aims  at  anything 
more  than  a  fleeting  success  has  no  right  to  tell 
an  ugly  story  unless  he  knows  its  beautiful  counter 
part.  The  impression  that  he  should  aim  to  pro 
duce  on  the  reader's  mind  with  his  work  must  have 
much  in  common  with  the  impression  originally 
produced  on  his  own  mind  by  his  subject.  If  the 
effect  of  an  efficient  knowledge  of  his  subject  had 
been  to  fill  his  spirit  with  melancholy,  and  to 
paralyze  his  better  feelings,  it  would  be  impossible 
that  his  work  should  be  written.  Its  existence 
depends  on  the  artist's  reaction  against  the  sub 
ject;  and  if  the  subject  is  morally  hideous,  of 
course  this  reaction  will  be  in  favor  of  moral 
beauty.  The  fault  of  M.  Dumas's  book,  in  our 
judgment,  is  not  that  such  a  reaction  has  not 
occurred  in  his  own  mind,  or  even  that  it  has  been 
slight,  but  that  it  is  but  faintly  reflected  in  the 
constitution  of  the  story.  There  is  in  the  author's 
tone  an  unpleasant  suggestion  of  cynicism.  It 
may  be,  however,  that  there  is  but  just  enough  to 
show  us  how  seriously,  how  solemnly  even,  he  has 
taken  the  miseries  which  he  describes.  There  is 
enough,  at  any  rate,  to  establish  an  essential 
difference  between  the  "Affaire  Clemenceau"  and 
such  a  book  as  M.  Edmond  About's  "Madelon." 
It  may  be,  taking  high  ground,  a  fault  that  the 
former  work  is  depressing;  but  is  it  not  a  greater 

226 


BY    HENRY    JAMES 

fault  that  the  latter,  considering  what  it  is,  is 
amusing?  The  work  before  us  thrills  and  interests 
the  reader  from  beginning  to  end.  It  is  hard  to 
give  it  more  liberal  praise  than  to  say  that,  in 
spite  of  all  its  crudities,  all  its  audacities,  his 
finer  feelings  are  never  for  an  instant  in  abey 
ance,  and  although,  to  our  nervous  Anglo-Saxon 
apprehensions,  they  may  occasionally  seem  to 
be  threatened,  their  interests  are  never  actually 
superseded  by  those  of  his  grosser  ones.  Since 
the  taste  of  the  age  is  for  realism,  all  thanks  for 
such  realism  as  this.  It  fortifies  and  enlarges  the 
mind;  it  disciplines  the  fancy.  Since  radicalism 
in  literature  is  the  order  of  the  day,  let  us  welcome 
a  radicalism  so  intelligent  and  so  logical.  In  a 
season  of  careless  and  flippant  writing,  and  of 
universal  literary  laxity,  there  are  few  sensations 
more  wholesome  than  to  read  a  work  so  long  con 
sidered  and  so  severely  executed  as  the  present. 
From  beginning  to  end  there  is  not  a  word  which 
is  accidental,  not  a  sentence  which  leaves  the 
author's  pen  without  his  perfect  assent  and  sym 
pathy.  He  has  driven  in  his  stake  at  the  end  as 
well  as  at  the  beginning.  Such  writing  is  reading 
for  men. 


227 


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